



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Chap Copyright No 

Sheif._l_B.ioas- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Teacher and 
His Work. 



THE TEACHER AND 
HIS WORK. 



BY 

SAMUEL FINDLEY, Ph. D. 



Akron, Ohio: 
Home and School. 



L diozs 
Shs 



38140 

Copyright, 1899. 
By Samuel Findley. 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 







THE COMMERCIAL 
PRINTING 00. 



PREFACE. 

THIS book is the outgrowth of almost a lifetime 
of school work in nearly every grade of schools, 
from the district school in the country to the city 
superintendency. 

Much of the matter contained has done duty, in 
other forms, at teachers' institutes in Ohio, Pennsyl- 
vania, West Virginia, and Illinois; and a considerable 
part has appeared in an educational magazine. The 
whole has been carefully revised — much of it re- 
written. 

I have not been ambitious to make a large book, 
but rather to condense within moderate limits as 
much as possible of helpfulness and inspiration to 
those who are bearing the burden and heat of the 
day. Nor have I striven after novelty or display of 
learning, but I have striven to make simple and 
plain some of the most vital things in school educa- 
tion. 

The life of an earnest teacher is of necessity 
laborious and pains-taking, but it has its compensa- 
tions. Though at times painfully conscious of weak- 
ness and short-coming, I find in the retrospect of 



the years much more of satisfaction than regret. 
I rejoice that I have had, and still have, some part 
in a work so good. 

A hearty God-speed to every worker into whose 
hands this book may come. 

SAMUEL FINDLEY. 
Akron, Ohio. 
July, 1899. 



CONTENTS. 

I. Character and Equipment of the 

Teacher. 
II. The Teacher's Spirit. 

III. Professional Ethics. 

IV. Preparation and Adaptation. 
V. School Organization. 

VI. Recitation and Study. 
VII. Government of the School. 
VIII. The Moral and Religious Element in 
Education. 



Character and Equipment 
of the Teacher. 



' ' For myself, I am certain that the good of human life 
cannot lie in the possession of things which, for one man to 
possess, is for the rest to lose, but rather in things which all 
can possess alike, and where one man's wealth promotes his 
neighbor's. ' ' — Spinoza. 



Character and Equipment of the Teacher. 

THE chief factor in public education is the 
teacher, i Like teacher, like school. No matter 
how costly the buildings, the furniture, and the 
apparatus, and little matter how excellent the text- 
books, and how wisely arranged the courses of 
study, the schools will be just what the teachers 
make them. Good teachers will make good schools, 
and poor teachers poor schools, under almost any 
circumstances. Some one has well said that the 
Socratic method is worth very little without a 
Socrates in the teacher's chair. Mr. Garfield is 
credited with saying that Mark Hopkins on one end 
of a log and a student on the other, would be a 
good university. And Mr. Emerson, replying to his 
daughter's inquiries as to what studies she should 
take, said : "I care little what studies you pursue ; 
I am far more concerned to know with whom you 
study." These familiar utterances all point in the 
same direction. Among all the agencies for the 
promotion of popular education, the teacher stands 
pre-eminent. 

It follows that the most direct and effective 
way to improve public education is to secure a 
higher order of teaching talent. The want of well 



ii 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

qualified teachers is the weak place in our system 
of public instruction. The majority of teachers are 
doing business with insufficient capital, and they 
are ever on the verge of bankruptcy. The one 
great need of our schools is better prepared and bet- 
ter paid teachers. Less money invested in brick and 
mortar and more in brains would be to the credit of 
our intelligence and greatly to the advantage of the 
rising generation. Many of our communities dis- 
play commendable liberality in provision for the 
externals of education ; but much of it is waste 
because of niggardliness in that which is more 
essential. 

In harmony with these views are the following 
words of President Adams, of Cornell : "I believe 
that no person of impartial judgment can observe 
our schools in comparison with those of Europe 
without admitting our great inferiority, especially 
in the primary and lower grades. We spend large 
sums in large and well arranged buildings, and in 
elegant furniture and expensive text-books, and 
then frustrate the purpose of them all by not having 
the one thing compared with which all the other 
things are nothing, namely, a good school. ' ' The 
one way of having a good school is to have in it a 
good teacher. 

The teacher's incentives to excellence are great. 
He has great opportunities. His work is noble, 
requiring good talent and high attainment. Suc- 
cess in the pursuit of wealth, so much coveted by 



12 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

most men, almost invariably cramps and dwarfs the 
soul. The best success in teaching can be attained 
only through the enlargement and ennobling of the 
teacher's whole being. And this is one of the 
blessed compensations of the work. 

The first and most valuable qualities of the 
teacher pertain to his personality — to the inner sub- 
stance of his life and character, to his motive, pur- 
pose, spirit. 

Genuine character is essential. It would be 
vain to attempt to make a good teacher without good 
material to start with. It has been said that of 
a piece of steel you can make almost anything you 
please, from a plowshare to a watch spring ; the 
essential thing is that it first be good steel. The 
teacher's work, in the long run, in the outcome, 
will be measured by what he is. The true teacher's 
best teaching is an unconscious emanation from the 
undermost substance of his character. No assumed 
appearance of goodness will serve. It requires very 
little time for pupils to penetrate and perforate any 
mask their teacher may put on. Some one has said 
that a squirrel is not surer to know a sound nut 
than are children to recognize genuine character in 
their teacher where it exists, and they cannot escape 
its influence nor withhold their respect. 

But what is included in genuine character? 
What are its essential elements ? Without attempt- 
ing anything like an exhaustive analysis, I present 
the following trinity of character : 



13 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

i. Integrity. In common acceptation, a man of 
integrity is an honest man — a man that pays his 
debts, tells the truth, and holds his word sacred. 
But a glance at its etymology reveals a striking 
significance in the term. It has the same origin 
and something of the same significance as the word 
integer. If we supply a letter which seems to have 
been omitted for the sake of euphony, we have 
integerity, which implies entireness, wholeness, 
completeness. A man of integrity is not necessarily 
very large or very great, but he is intact ; no part 
of him is wanting through indulgence in vice or 
wrong-doing. He has that completeness which 
comes from standing in proper relation to the 
Divine. A soul estranged from God has lost its 
integrity. It is imperfect, incomplete — in an ab- 
normal state. Like a severed branch, it is fruitless 
and useless. ' ' Apart from me ye can do nothing. ' ' 
A man of integrity is a man of right principles. He 
loves God with all his heart and his neighbor as 
himself, and walks in the way of righteousness. 

2. Purity. I never so much crave a gifted 
tongue or pen as when I touch this subject. O the 
excellence of purity ! O the blessedness ! The 
pure in heart shall see God. There shall in no wise 
enter into the beautiful city anything that is un- 
clean ; but those having clean hands and a pure 
heart shall stand in the holy place. Even external 
purity is much to be desired. Teachers should 
always be clean in person and attire, and pure 



14 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

in speech. The smutty joke, the impure jest, 
should never defile the lips of a teacher. It is 
always a mark of coarseness and want of refinement. 
Nor should the teacher ever defile himself by the 
use of strong drink or tobacco. It is hard to 
reconcile these practices with our good opinion of 
some who indulge in them. It cannot be that a 
pure spirit can make its abode in so vile a place as 
a body defiled with strong drink or tobacco. 

But purity of mind and heart is above all. A 
man may know himself by the company he keeps 
when he is alone. If, whenever he is out of the 
crowd, impure thoughts and desires come like a 
herd of unclean beasts and hold high carnival in his 
mind and heart, he may well bemoan himself, and 
cry out, unclean ! unclean ! 

Marcus Aurelius spoke well when he said, 
" Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will 
be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed 

by the thoughts A man should use 

himself to think of those things only about which if 
one should suddenly ask, What hast thou now in 
thy thoughts ? With perfect openness thou mightest 
immediately answer, This, or that ; so that from 
thy words it should be plain that everything in thee 
is simple, pure, and benevolent, and such as be- 
comes a social being. ' ' 

A majority of teachers are not sufficiently "im- 
pressed with the blighting effect of impurity on 
young minds. It contaminates wherever it touches. 



15 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Too much vigilance cannot be used to guard 
against it. Nor can too much vigilance be used by- 
parents and teachers to store the minds of children 
with choice gems of pure thought, upon which 
they may feed in times of solitude. 

3. Strength. The third member of this trinity 
of character, like that of the great Trinity, proceeds 
from the other two. Strength of character always 
attends integrity and purity. It includes moral 
courage, lofty purpose, indomitable will. It has in 
it toughness of moral fiber — endurance. Continu- 
ance in well-doing under adverse conditions is a 
manifestation of strength. 

To face danger without flinching is not always 
evidence of true courage. It may be the result of 
sheer recklessness or of selfish pride. A man of 
true courage is not always conscious that he is 
courageous. There is not unfrequently the highest 
courage beneath a diffident, retiring exterior. It 
requires higher courage to stand in a humble lot and 
discharge faithfully and patiently, day by day, 
each little duty as it comes, than to go into battle. 
" The man who, in the midst of poverty and priva- 
tion, toils unflinchingly and uncomplainingly for 
the sustenance of his family, in full conscious- 
ness of the fact that he can never rise superior to 
his misfortunes, is a man of courage. He who has 
the best and most unimpeachable right and claim to 
courage, is the man who, to shield and protect others, 
accepts open insult and submits unmurmuringly to 

16 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

open censure, criticism, and indignity. This is 
harder than leading an army, harder than wearing 
a royal crown, harder than preaching truth and right 
to a generation of fools." 

A chief ingredient of courage is faith, that soul- 
sight that looks beneath the surface of things and 
sees the invisible — that clings to the arm of 
strength. 

It is a seeming paradox that we are strongest 
when we are weakest. Not until we realize our 
weakness do we know what true strength is. In 
the extremity of human weakness, the might of 
Divine power becomes manifest, and strength is 
made perfect in weakness. 

No class of the world's workers have greater 
need to "be strong and of a good courage ' ' than 
teachers. Their work is always arduous ; but they 
must often work on patiently and faithfully in the 
face of opposition and in the midst of misrepresent- 
ation and undeserved censure. Not unfrequently 
is a high degree of courage required to resist the 
temptation to turn aside from the work, through 
desire for relief from the wearing anxieties and 
perplexities which attend it. Many a tired and dis- 
couraged teacher has need to take to himself the 
words addressed to the valiant Joshua : ' ' Have 
not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a good 
courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed ; 
for the Iyord thy God is with thee whithersoever 
thou goest. ' ' 



17 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Aii essential part of the teacher's equipment is 
good scholarship. I use the term rather with ref- 
erence to quality than extent. Whatever the ex- 
tent, its quality should be good. It should be clear, 
accurate, and thorough. A scholar is a learner. A 
good scholar is one who has learned enough in a 
masterly way to beget in him scholarly tastes and 
habits. He knows some things well, and has the 
ability and disposition to learn more. Some people 
who never reach the college door are better scholars 
than some others who have gone through college and 
carried off a diploma. It has been said that some 
college graduates are not able to read their own 
diplomas. 

"Would you advise me to go to college?" 
' ' Should I attend a normal school ? " " How can I 
best fit myself for teaching ? ' ' are questions often 
on the lips of young people. The answer to all 
such questions is, lay a foundation of good scholar- 
ship. Any superstructure you may attempt to rear 
otherwise will surely come to naught. Above all, 
do not attempt any short cuts ; they are a delusion 
and a snare. If any school, by whatever high- 
sounding name it may be known, though it be 
called a national normal university, offers to do for 
you in two years all that the college undertakes to 
do in four or five, turn from it ; go not in the way 
thereof ; for it is a sham and a fraud. Whosoever 
is deceived thereby is not wise. 

If you have fair talent, and the time and money 



18 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

are at command, go to college by all means. 
But in any event, determine to learn all you can 
as well as you can. One of the most scholarly 
women, as well as one of the strongest and best 
teachers I have ever known, told me that her oppor- 
tunities for schooling were all summed up in two 
short winter terms at the district school. And I 
heard from the lips of a man who is now chancellor 
of a state university, that he never had the privilege 
of attending college. That which most concerns 
each one of us is a readiness to use well his own 
opportunity, whatever it may be. None of us will 
be called to give account for talents not committed 
to him , nor for privileges beyond his reach. 

A foundation element of good scholarship, the 
want of which should exclude from the teacher's 
ranks, is good reading. Many claiming ability to 
teach are sadly lacking in ability to read. I refer 
not to elocutionary attainment, but to the ability to 
glean thought from the printed page. One who has 
acquired the ability to interpret readily, or get 
rapidly the meaning from, a plain piece of good, 
standard English, has at least a foundation of good 
scholarship ; and if to this be added its counterpart, 
the ability to write good Knglish, the most import- 
ant requirements of good scholarship are satisfied ; 
the rest may almost be taken for granted. 

Another part of the teacher's equipment, a con- 
comitant of good scholarship, is disciplined powers. 
A teacher should have the ready use of himself. 



19 



the; teacher and his work. 

He should be able to command the prompt attend- 
ance of all of his faculties. He should be able to 
think and to think clearly and correctly. He 
should be able to see clearly all the conditions 
of a problem, to reason correctly and reach right 
conclusions. He should have the power of atten- 
tion. It should not require the spur of novelty and 
interest to hold his mind to any subject. It is said 
that Mr. Garfield, when he found his mind wander- 
ing because the subject in hand proved dry or un- 
interesting, was accustomed to take himself severely 
to task. All his powers must be obedient. 

The skillful use of the hand is of great value to 
the teacher in the class-room. The ability to sketch 
readily on the blackboard is almost another lan- 
guage. The time ought to come speedily when 
this will be deemed an essential part of a teacher's 
outfit. 

But not every good scholar with disciplined 
powers can teach well. There is need of skill in 
the direct work of instruction. Teaching is high 
art. The teacher must be an adept in the art of 
putting things — and yet more, he must have skill 
in waking up mind. Virtue must go out of him to 
energize and quicken the minds of his pupils. He 
must not do his pupils' thinking for them, but he 
should have the power of making them think. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds paid a high compliment to Dr. John- 
son when he said, " No man had like him the fac- 
ulty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. ' ' 



20 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

This skill in teaching is something to be much 
coveted. Study and practice are the great means 
of attainment. Seek and ye shall find ; knock and 
it shall be opened unto you. There is probably as 
much to be learned about true teaching in the four 
gospels as anywhere else. They contain the finest 
examples of good teaching ever recorded. The 
Great Teacher knew the human mind and how to 
reach it ; and whoever catches fully the spirit of 
his method has made high attainment. 

A teacher should grow continually. A growing 
teacher of moderate attainments is better than one 
of finished growth with large attainments. Decay 
usually sets in soon after growth ceases. The 
stimulation of contact with a mind that has ceased 
to grow is very small. The waters of a running 
brook are purer and sweeter than those of a stag- 
nant pool. He must add fuel who would keep 
bright fires burning. Only a learner can teach. 

I have ever counted it one of the blessed com- 
pensations of the teacher's calling that the incen- 
tives to self-culture are great and constant. Shame 
and confusion to that large class of teachers who, 
once having passed the examiner' s ordeal, settle 
down to the weary round of lesson-grinding, with 
no ambition or desire for further attainment. When 
a teacher ceases to grow he should cease to teach. 

A schoolmaster should first be master of him- 
self. Such mastery is worth whatever striving, 
even painful striving, it may cost. He is truly 



21 



the; teacher and his work. 

victor who gets the victory over self. It means 
much ; but I refer more particularly here to the 
teacher's control of his temper. Mettle is a good 
thing in horse or man when held in with bit and 
bridle. A young business man once said to me 
that he had just learned a rule which he thought 
would be of great use to him as a business man. 
On being asked what it was, he replied, "Always 
let the other fellow get mad." This is an excel- 
lent rule for the teacher in dealing with parents as 
well as with pupils. There is much to try the 
patience of the teacher. Sudden flashes of temper 
and hasty, unguarded words, often come unbidden, 
to be repented of afterwards in dust and ashes. 
Blessed the teacher who is the ruler of his own 
spirit ; he is greater than he that taketh a city. 

One of the greatest misfortunes that can befall 
a teacher is to be under the domination of an irri- 
table temper, and the misfortune to his pupils is 
scarcely less. Dr. Channing has well said that a 
boy or girl compelled for six hours a day to see the 
countenance and hear the voice of a fretful, unkind, 
hard, or passionate teacher, is in a school of vice. 
There are few callings more trying to the patience 
than teaching, and few in which the maintenance 
of a cheerful and happy temper is more essential. 
It is not too much to say that the teacher who can- 
not control his temper should quit the school room. 

It would be easy to extend this inventory of the 
teacher's equipment almost indefinitely. Good 



22 



CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 

eyes and ears, good voice, self-reliance, sympathy, 
enthusiasm, and many other qualities might be 
added ; but my aim is to be suggestive rather than 
exhaustive. I make special mention of only one 
other item, which should not be wanting in the out- 
fit of any teacher ; namely, common sense. It is '\S 
not easy to define, but the lack of it in any one is 
soon manifest. In a meeting of teachers at Cleve- 
land, a number of years ago, a paper was read in 
which there was some enumeration of the qualifi- 
cations of a good teacher, the concluding remark 
being, that to all there should be added a consider- 
able sprinkling of common sense. The superin- 
tendent of the schools of Washington City, who 
was present, took exception to this. He said he 
usually advocated sprinkling, but he thought the 
teacher should always be immersed in common 
sense. 

Whatever the form, or method of application, 
the thing itself is excellent. Common sense leads 
to a recognition of the fitness of things — enables its 
possessor to see aright and act aright. The teacher 
who has it will not attempt the impossible in disci- 
pline or in teaching. He will not wear his life out 
trying to make of boys and girls what the stuff was 
never intended to make. He will not keep himself 
and his pupils always on the rack concerning petty 
details of conduct. He will not treat the acci- 
dental dropping of a slate-pencil with as much 
severity as the telling of a deliberate falsehood. 



23 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Common sense is reasonable in all things, duly re- 
gards the rights and feelings of the humblest child, 
and always does the nicest things in the nicest way. 
Now, dear reader, meditate on these things ; give 
thyself wholly to them ; that thy profiting may ap- 
pear in all things. Covet earnestly the best gifts. 



24 



The Teacher's Spirit. 



1 



' ' Had we tests fine enough we would doubtless find each 
man's personality the center of outreaching influence. He 
himself may be utterly unconscious of this exhalation of 
moral forces, as he is of the contagion of disease from his 
body. But if light is in him he shines; if darkness rules he 
shades; if his heart glows with love he warms; if frozen with 
selfishness he chills; if corrupt he poisons; if pure-hearted 
he cleanses 

"The soul, like the sun, has its atmosphere, and is over 
against its fellows, for light, warmth, and transformation." 
— Hillis. 



II. 

The Teacher's Spirit. 

IN my experience as a school supervisor, I have not 
always found it easy to discover the secret of 
the success or failure of teachers. Some of those 
from whom I have expetced little have proven very 
capable and successful. There comes to mind the 
case of one who was rejected on her examination, 
but was afterwards employed in an emergency. 
Her success was very marked. She not only gov- 
erned and taught well, but she attached her pupils 
to her strongly, and her influence over them was 
healthful and inspiring. Many teachers could be 
named, highly esteemed and successful, now holding 
principalships and other important positions, who 
were at first licensed reluctantly and employed with 
a good many misgivings. 

On the other hand, some possessed of good char- 
acter, good scholarship, and, to all appearances, a 
fair measure of all the other requirements, and con- 
cerning whom there were high expectations, have 
failed utterly, or have ranked only as mediocres. 
A striking example is the case of one of the best 
scholars I have known — one who seemed to know 
almost everything and betrayed no lack in other 
directions. She was certificated and employed with- 



27 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

out the least hesitation, but proved her incompetency 
before the close of the first day. Her pupils, with 
keen insight, quickly saw in her something which 
the school officials had failed to discover. With her 
advent there seemed to come into the school troops 
of the imps of mischief, and before the first day was 
over the school was hopelessly demoralized. 

Another example comes to mind — that of one 
who had shown good ability and great industry as a 
student, besides great energy and force of character 
in pushing her way through high school and college, 
without means and without home aid or even home 
sympathy. The interest with which friends and ac- 
quaintances watched her career as a student amounted 
almost to enthusiasm. With high school and college 
diploma fairly won, she had no difficulty in securing 
employment as a teacher. Places awaited her. Dis- 
appointment, too, awaited her and her friends. 'In 
point of real teaching power, she scarcely ranked 
as a mediocre. Inspiration seemed to be wanting. 
She repelled rather than attracted her pupils. 

These and other similar cases have made a deep 
impression on my mind. They have made me think 
that the signs of a good teacher do not always appear 
on the surface. The teacher's inner life and spirit 
determine his real worth. Persons of shallow na- 
ture, without depth and richness of soul, can never 
enter into the higher realm of instruction and influ- 
ence. Being themselves superficial, they cannot see 
beneath the surface of things. They are not born 

28 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

again ; they have no newness of life. Their eyes 
have not been opened ; they have no inner vision. 
They do not understand their own life, or the life 
about them, and are never able to put themselves in 
right relations to their work or their surroundings. 

It was said of an eminent character of old that he 
was preferred above presidents and princes because 
an excellent spirit was in him. It is always the ex- 
cellent spirit in a man that gives him desirable and 
lasting pre-eminence. What but the excellent spirit 
in our own Lincoln and Garfield placed them so high 
in the esteem and affection of a great people, and 
gave them a fame that will last as long as history is 
read ? It is the excellent spirit in the teacher that 
gives him his greatest power, that fits him for the 
best work of a teacher. 

It is in dealing with such a subject as this that one 
feels most keenly the poverty of human speech. 
Bacon has said that the finest part of beauty is that 
which a picture cannot express. So it may be said 
that the finest and best in the spirit of a true teacher 
cannot be expressed in words. Perhaps no one has 
better expressed the inadequacy of language to em- 
body deepest thought and finest feeling than Bishop 
Huntington, in his inimitable classic, " Unconscious 
Tuition." "All true wisdom, " he says," involves 
a certain something that is inexpressible. After all 
you have said about it, you feel that there is some- 
thing more which you never can say, and there is a 
frequent sensation of pain at the inadequacy of 



29 



THE TKACHKR AND HIS WORK. 

language to shape and convey — perhaps, also, the 
inadequacy of the conceptions to define — the secret 
and nameless thought, which is the delicious charm 
and crown of the subject, as it hangs in robes of 
glory before your mind. Any cultivated person, 
who has never been oppressed by this experience, 
must be subject, I should say, to dogmatism, prag- 
matism, conceit, or some other comfortable chronic 
infirmity. Where the nature is rich and the emo- 
tions are generous, there will always be a reverential 
perception that ideas only partly condescend to be 
embodied in words. So it is always found that the 
truest effects of eloquence are where the expression 
suggests a region of thought, a dim vista of imag- 
ery, an oceanic depth of feeling, beyond what is 
actually contained in the sentences. You have to 
judge an orator as much by what he leaves out as 
by what he puts in. He uses words with the true 
mastery of genius who not only knows how to say 
exactly and lucidly, and with the fewest sounds, the 
thing he thinks, but how to make what he does say 
indicate that diviner part of wisdom which must re- 
main forever unsaid. The cleanest rhetorical direct- 
ness is united with the strongest sense of mystery. 
You hear thoughts perfectly within the range of the 
understanding sublimely uttered, and you are made 
aware of the nearness of a world whose thoughts 
are more sublimely unuttered. ' ' 

Without attempting an exhaustive analysis, I 
present a few of the more obvious elements of the 



30 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

excellent spirit which the teacher should seek with 
whole heart and soul and mind. 

At the head stands child-likeness. To be child- 
like is not to be childish. There is nothing in the 
child-like spirit inconsistent with the sturdiest man- 
liness or the most mature womanliness. When the 
disciples of Jesus strove among themselves for pre- 
eminence in the new kingdom, He took a little child, 
and having set him in the midst He said: "Whoso- 
ever shall humble himself as this little child, the same 
is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." These words 
must always impress us with the excellence of child- 
likeness. It is the passport to the better life. One 
cannot contemplate without desiring not only to 
understand it but to possess it. But it is a very high 
attainment — the highest and best the soul reaches in 
this life. No greater task can a strong man set for 
himself than to become child-like in the fullest sense. 
When he has accomplished it he is ready to enter 
another sphere. 

But what is it to be child-like ? One writer an- 
swers well in these words: " To be child-like is to be 
harmless and void of offense ; to be so pure as not to 
understand the suggestions of impurity ; to be un- 
selfish and unworldly ; to ' take no anxious thought 
for the morrow' , fully believing and trusting that 
'our Father knoweth that we have need of these 
things'; and to be willing to follow wherever he 
leads the way. ' ' Only a true, pure, loving soul can 
be child-like. 



3i 



THE TEACHKR AND HIS WORK. 

The chief elements of child-likeness are three : 
i. Humility. To be truly humble is not to 
think meanly of one's self, or to underestimate one's 
own abilities. Humility is a noble grace. ' ' Before 
honor is humility, ' 'and ' 'with the lowly is wisdom. ' ' 
It is the opposite of the proud and haughty spirit 
that ' ' goeth before a fall. ' ' Pride is always un- 
seemly. Few things are more disgusting to right 
minded people than to see any human being strut 
before his fellows. Whenever anyone shows that 
he is satisfied with himself everybody else becomes 
dissatisfied with him ; whenever a person thinks 
much of himself, he is lightly esteemed by other 
people. Humility is the appropriate attitude of 
mortals. It is the root of all the graces, the spring 
of all that is lovely in human character. Words- 
worth tells us out of his own experience that wisdom 
is nearer to us when we stoop than when we soar. Par- 
adoxical as it may seem, humility is true exaltation. 
Some special reasons may be given why we as 
teachers should be humble. Because, in the first 
place, we know so little. I refer not alone to the 
small attainments of the novice and the ignorance 
of the incompetent and unfaithful. The attain- 
ments of the wisest are small compared with the 
whole realm of knowledge, to say nothing of the 
domain of mystery. This life is too short to know 
fairly well more than a few subjects, and no man 
knows any subject to its utmost limits. The man 
who is proud of his knowledge gives evidence that 



32 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

his circle of vision is small. We readily sympathize 
with the feeling of the scholarly Newton, when, near 
the close of his life, referring to his own attainments, 
he said, ' ' I feel like a little child that has picked up 
a few pebbles along the shore, while the great ocean 
of knowledge lies out beyond. ' ' 

But again, we have reason to be humble because ' 
we see so dimly and are so often mistaken. We often 
think we know, and afterwards find we were mis- 
taken. What we hold as truth to-day is often dif- 
ferent from what we held yesterday. Even great 
ecclesiastical bodies, supposed to be almost infallible, 
find it necessary to revise their creeds. It would be 
good for anyone imbued with the correctness of his 
own opinions, or with the certainty of human knowl- 
edge in general, to read attentively the works of any 
half dozen modern writers on psychology or geology. 

Yet again, we have reason to be humble because 
of our inefficiency. What the average teacher ac- 
complishes for and with his pupils is insignificant in 
comparison with what is possible. The possibilities 
of young minds in the direction of development and 
culture are very great, under proper stimulation and 
skillful guidance. But the average results attained 
in schools are meager. It is fair to say that what is 
done in schools throughout the land, both in the 
production of scholarship and in the formation of 
character, is less than half of what might be accom- 
plished, with the whole body of teachers fully quali- 
fied and thoroughly in earnest. 



33 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

"Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 
Humility is the only fitting attitude of beings so 
short-sighted, so imperfect, so dependent. " Be 
clothed with humility ; for God resisteth the proud, 
and giveth grace to the humble." 

2. Teachableness. The unperverted little child 
is not only willing to be taught, it is anxious 
to learn. It is an embodied interrogation. What 
is it ? What for ? Why ? are some of the familiar 
forms in which the teachable attitude of the 
little child is manifest. Teachableness implies 
obedience ; it also implies an acknowledgment of 
ignorance. The futile efforts of grown people to 
conceal their ignorance is sometimes ludicrous. 
Like the silly ostrich which thinks itself concealed 
from its pursuers when only its head is buried in 
the sand, many foolish people imagine themselves 
secure behind a mask which all the world sees 
through. The multitude is slow to learn that there 
can be no successful seeming without being. If 
people generally made as much effort to learn as 
they make to conceal their ignorance, the sum of 
intelligence in the world would be considerably 
increased. What a gulf there is between a soul 
that is affected, self -conceited and full of pretense, 
and one that is simple, unassuming, and docile. 
Before the one is a self-constructed and almost im- 
passable barrier; before the other is an open and 
inviting highway. 

Young teachers are often unduly impressed with 



34 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

a false sense of the dignity of their position. It 
has been gravely maintained that a teacher cannot 
afford to say, in the hearing of his pupils, I do 
not know — as if it were possible for him to know 
everything. The best attitude of a teacher in this 
regard is that of a learner a little in advance of his 
pupils. Of course, teachers ought to know a good 
deal, and they ought to be very familiar with what 
they undertake to teach. But to pretend or assume 
attainments not possessed is never justifiable, and 
he that does it is sure to come to grief sooner or 
later. It may be noted in passing that the broader 
and more thorough one's knowledge, the easier it is 
to say, I do not know. 

The teachable spirit will lead a teacher to see, 
acknowledge, and profit bj^ his mistakes. Never 
stick to a wrong because you have spoken it ; never 
do a wrong because your word is out. If you have 
unwisely promised or threatened punishment which 
you afterwards conclude to be undeserved or im- 
proper, be frank to confess your mistake to all con- 
cerned, even though it include the whole school, 
and refrain from inflicting the punishment. Such 
a course will not weaken your authority, but will 
give you a stronger hold upon the school. 

The teachable spirit will make a teacher ready 
to receive counsel from the parents of his pupils as 
well as from those above him in authority. A 
teacher ought to be reasonably jealous of any inter- 
meddling or interference with his own prerogative. 



35 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

He must control and teach his school, and in many 
things he must be a law unto himself. He should 
moderately but firmly resist all such interference on 
the part of superintendent, board, or parents, 
as tends to weaken his authority and influence, or 
to hinder in any way the fullest exercise of his ap- 
propriate function as a teacher. Yet he should 
keep an open mind to the suggestions of all who are 
concerned in his pupils' well-being. Even when 
suggestions are prompted by over-officiousness, he 
should weigh them well, and adopt, as far as practi- 
cable, all that is good in them. No self-conceit or 
self-will should prevent the teacher from profiting 
by suggestions of good, from whatever source they 
may come. 

3. Trustfulness. The affectionate, trustful 
spirit with which the little child clings to its natural 
protectors is the symbol and ideal of true faith in 
the human soul. Credulity and superstition are 
but the semblance and counterfeit of true faith. 
Genuine faith is the soul's inner sense whereby it 
sees the invisible. The soul without faith is blind 
to all beyond the realm of external sense. Some 
one has said that faith is certitude without proof. 
Faith has proofs of its own which are incommuni- 
cable — proofs addressed more to the heart and con- 
science than to the rational faculty. For one with- 
out faith to deny the existence of the objects of 
faith, is like a blind man denying the existence of 
light and color. 

36 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

Faith is the hand of the soul which holds on 
when sense and reason are unable to point the way. 

Faith is something nobler and better than mere 
belief in human creed and dogma. It is the vital 
principle of the soul which links it to the divine, 
and gives strength in weakness and peace in adver- 
sity. It makes the soul hopeful and buoyant, and 
gives courage to undertake and persevere. Men of 
high purpose and action have ever been men of 
great faith. There can be no high ideal of life 
without it. 

Faith in the teacher gives him high ideals and 
expectations for his pupils, and enables him to in- 
spire them with like high ideals. No heartless 
skeptic should be permitted to instil the insid- 
ious and blighting poison of his own unbelief into 
the minds and hearts of youth. 

There are doubtless other elements of the child- 
like spirit, but these three are chief. Let them suffice. 

Next after child-likeness may be named a 
spirit of earnestness. The world owes far more 
to earnest men and women than it does to genius. 
It is not by strokes of genius but by earnest plodding 
that the world's work is done. Few are highly 
gifted ; great talent is scarce ; but all may be in 
earnest. One man thoroughly in earnest is worth a 
regiment of dawdlers. If the present membership 
of all branches of the christian church were to be- 
come at once thoroughly in earnest, the world 
would be christianized within a decade. 



37 



the; teacher and his work. 

Real earnestness in the teacher does not mani- 
fest itself in fussiness or noise. Shallow water 
ripples and bubbles ; the deep stream runs still. 
Earnest souls are deep and calm, but they move on 
with irrisistible force. Something of earnestness is 
due to the blood in the arteries, to the secretions of 
the liver and stomach, and to natural temperament, 
but more to heart and conscience. It is not want- 
ing where there are a high sense of duty and clear 
and right views of life. 

Another word of kindred meaning is enthusiasm. 
This word of noble origin is sometimes put to base 
uses. It is not unfrequently used synonymously 
with fanaticism, whereas in its original signification 
it means God within. An enthusiast is inspired or 
God-filled. A truly earnest soul is an enthusiast in 
the good sense. There is always about him a glow 
of warmth, a fervor, that keeps all his powers in 
working condition and makes it good and pleasant 
to be near him. How different the atmosphere of a 
school room which has in it a teacher with glowing 
fervency of spirit from that of one having in it a 
shallow, languid, indifferent teacher — the one a 
continual benediction and inspiration, the other a 
weariness and pain to behold. 

The earnest teacher takes interest in his pupils 
and puts heart into his work. Teachers are some- 
times advised to lock their school cares in the school 
room at the close of each day. If by this is meant 
the leaving behind of wearing and fruitless worry 

38 



THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 

about trifles, or about things which thoughtfuluess 
cannot remedy, the advice is good. The more of 
this the better. Blessed the teacher who can do it. 
But I cannot always avoid the suspicion that it is 
taken to mean the giving as little thought as pos- 
sible to the school and its well-being. School du- 
ties and responsibilities do sit lightly on the shoul- 
ders of some teachers ; but an earnest teacher will 
give much earnest thought to his school out of 
school hours. He will carry his school on his heart 
somewhat as a good mother her children. Presi- 
dent Garfield has told, concerning his experience as 
a teacher, that he was wont, on waking in the 
morning, to lie in his bed and draw in imagination 
the plan of his school room on his pillow, so as to 
get each pupil as vividly as possible before his 
mind. Then he would study each in turn, his ten- 
dencies and peculiarities, that he might determine 
what he should do for each that had not yet been 
done. In my own first years of teaching I often 
taught all night long ; and in later years I have 
spent sleepless nights over troublesome school prob- 
lems ; and I do not think my success has been less 
for so doing. 

Another excellent trait, which might properly 
have been included in the child-like spirit, is in- 
genuousness. It is the opposite of craftiness or sly 
cunning. An ingenuous person is open, frank, 
candid, and free from equivocation. He is "actu- 
ated by a native simplicity and artlesness, which 



39 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

make him willing to confess his faults, and make 
known his sentiments without reserve. ' ' Ingenuous- 
ness is not inconsistent with a reasonable prudence, 
or a proper sense of propriety as to when to speak 
and when to keep silence. "A fool uttereth all his 
mind • but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. ' ' 
Craftiness and disguise usually accompany a 
sense of ill-desert or ill-design, but find no place in 
a truly noble soul. 

The Scotch poet utters only worldly wisdom 
when he advises, 

" Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can 
Frae critical dissection ; 
But keek through ilka ither man 
Wi' sharpened sly inspection." 

More like other-world wisdom are these words 
from Kmerson : ' ' Speak what you think now in 
hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow 
thinks in hard words again, though it contradict 
everything you said to-day . ' ' 

And these from Bacon : ' ' Simulation and dis- 
simulation commonly carry with them a show of 
fearfulness, which in any business doth spoil the 
feathers of round flying up to the mark. Round 
dealing is the honor of man's nature. The ablest 
men that ever were had all an openness and frank- 
ness of dealing, and a name of certainty and 
veracity. ' ' 

The ingenuous teacher readily gains the confi- 
dence of his pupils, and they unconsciously grow 
into his likeness. 



40 



the teacher's spirit. 

Still another element of the excellent spirit is 
magnanimity. A magnanimous person is literally- 
great of mind — magnus, great, animus, mind. He 
takes a broad, generous view of all things, and is 
disposed to look on the good in life and conduct. 
Magnanimity is often in common phrase called large- 
heartedness. It is that dignity or elevation of soul 
' ' which enables one to encounter danger or trouble 
with tranquility and firmness, to disdain injustice, 
meanness and revenge, and to act and sacrifice for 
noble objects." 

The magnanimous spirit in the teacher lifts him 
above the petty annoyances of the school room, and 
keeps him from magnifying the weaknesses and 
faults of his pupils. How often is the whole work 
and influence of the teacher marred and hindered by 
a narrow self-seeking ! A teacher should never allow 
himself to become a party in any case involving the 
conduct of a pupil. No misdemeanor of a pupil 
should be treated as a personal offense, or an insult 
to the teacher, but rather as an offense against good 
order and propriety. The teacher should never be 
either plaintiff or defendant, with a pupil as the 
party of the other part. His correct attitude is that 
of counsellor and friend — sometimes that of judge 
and executor. 

Many of the minor faults of pupils should be 
seen by the teacher as though he saw them 
not. A story is told of a Scotch tutor, who 
had the right view of this matter. A friend, 



4i 



THE TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 

walking with him one day through the campus, 
observed a student at a little distance limp- 
ing in imitation of the lame tutor, and expected 
to see the offender sharply reprimanded. Surprised 
that the tutor gave the matter no attention, the friend 
asked, ' 'Why do you not stop that impudent fellow?' ' 
"An' ye na' look at him, ye'll na' see him," replied 
the tutor. The magnanimous teacher will sometimes 
refrain from looking that he may not see. 

The large-minded, large-hearted teacher will har- 
bor no grudge against either pupils or their parents. 
This is a matter of much importance, and one to which 
teachers should give earnest heed. A very success- 
ful and much loved clergyman of my acquaintance, 
makes it a rule of his life never to entertain animos- 
ity or ill-will toward a fellow man. It is a good 
rule — one that will add greatly to the happiness and 
usefulness of all who observe it. How much of this 
world's good is destroyed, and how much of individ- 
ual comfort is taken out of life, by the malevolent 
feelings and enmities indulged among men ! The 
teacher's highest success, as well as his own comfort, 
requires the ' ' laying aside all malice, and all guile, 
and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking. ' ' 

But the last and greatest and best is love. This 
it is that Prof. Drummond calls ' ' The Greatest Thing 
in the World. " It is the most enduring thing in the 
world. Prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, 
knowledge shall vanish, and even faith shall be lost 
in sight and hope in fruition ; but love is eternal and 



42 



THE) TKACHKR'S SPIRIT. 

never fails. It is the most powerful thing in the 
world. It delivers souls from sin and death, and 
nothing else has ever done or can do that. ' ' Thou 
hast loved my soul out of the pit ' ' is the language 
of an ancient teacher. 

Love in the teacher's heart is the mightiest force 
in the school room. Every teacher ought to have 
a great big heart full of it, and should be most ready 
to pour it out on those who need it most. The real 
test of love in a teacher's heart is its readiness to 
flow for the unlovely — the wayward and neglected. 
What a benediction, what a blessing, is a loving 
teacher to the heart-hungry waifs found in nearly 
every school ! 

One blessed thing about love is that the more of 
it one gives the more he has. ' ' To love abundantly 
is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live 
forever. ' ' Truly love is the greatest thing in the 
world ! 

Love, like nearly all good things, has its counter- 
feits. A weak and sickly sentimentalism is not un- 
frequently put forward in its place. Many teachers 
use more of sentiment than sense in dealing with 
their pupils, shown by petting and fondling them, 
and by laxness in discipline and slackness in re- 
quiring the performance of school duties. Love 
does not always caress ; it sometimes smites. Truest 
love leads to greatest faithfulness, and this all teach- 
ers should ponder well. Those parents and teachers 
who, in good spirit and with painstaking, correct 



43 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

the faults of children and hold them rigorously to a 
high standard of excellence in all things, show 
greater love by far than those who languidly and 
weakly indulge them to their hurt. 

If any discouraged teacher asks how he may at- 
tain the excellent spirit thus imperfectly set forth, 
I answer, Not in your own strength and not in a 
day. No one does or can purify his own life. 
"Apart from me ye can do nothing." "As the 
branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in 
the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me." 
The essential thing at the outset and always is a 
right attitude for receiving proffered help. A man 
can no more elevate and ennoble himself by his own 
unaided efforts than lift himself over the fence by 
pulling at the straps of his boots. All efforts at 
reformation and right living, without the soul's 
coming into right relation to the Divine, are futile 
and vain. But these natural and proper relations 
once fully restored and established — the soul once 
planted in its appropriate soil, it grows naturally 
and even luxuriantly, and brings forth, in time, 
rich and abundant fruit. 



44 



Professional Ethics. 



. . . . " Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to }'ou, do ye even so to them." 



III. 

Professional Ethics. 

ETHICS and morals are synonymous terms, hav- 
ing reference to human conduct, behavior, duty. 
In professional ethics are included the mutual obliga- 
tions and duties of members of the same profession, 
each to each and to the profession at large ; and 
these are no less binding than those of any other 
human relation. The teacher who disregards the 
rights and feelings of a fellow teacher, is as blame- 
worthy as he is when he neglects or refuses to pay 
his grocery bill. He is debtor in both cases, and 
is in honor and in duty bound to discharge the 
debt. 

A modern writer has said that the greatest of all 
arts for the mass of mankind is conduct, and that 
every art has its ideal, the standard of perfection, 
toward which the efforts of all who practice it are 
more or less consciously directed. The ideal of the 
fine art of conduct has its embodiment in the Golden 
Rule. To live by this rule in form and spirit is the 
perfection of conduct. One main source of our un- 
rest, a chief obstacle in the way of our peace and 
happiness, is our failure to realize this ideal. 

The self element is strong and persistent. We 
see all things with selfish eyes, and fail ' ' to see 



47 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

ourselves as others see us. " " The greatest foe of the 
good life is the intense and irrational impulse each 
of us has to assert himself, even to the loss or injury of 
others, to take more than his due share of the good 
things, and less than his share of the work, the hard- 
ships, and the sufferings of human life. ' ' 

Obedience to the law of love is the sum of good 
morals. The Golden Rule is the best attainable 
working rule of life : L,ove thy neighbor as thyself ; 
put yourself in his place ; do as you would be done 
by ; or, as expanded by Confucius, the great Chi- 
nese teacher of morals, ' ' That which you hate in 
superiors, do not practice in your conduct toward 
inferiors ; that which you dislike in inferiors, do 
not practice toward superiors ; that which you hate 
in those before you, do not exhibit to those behind 
you ; that which you hate in those behind you, do 
not manifest to those before you ; that which you 
hate in those on your right, do not manifest to those 
on your left; that which you hate in those on your 
left, do not manifest to those on your right. This 
is the doctrine of measuring others .by ourselves." 
A modern moralist suggests that though the 
Golden Rule does not teach us precisely what is 
just, or true, or kind in each particular case, it does 
teach us to act according to the knowledge we have 
of the just and the true, in a kind and sympathetic 
way ; and that to live in obedience to this rule re- 
quires the cultivation of the intellectual power of 
imagination and the capacity of sympathy. ' ' The 

48 



PROFESSION AIv KTHICS. 

better we can imagine objects and relations not 
present to sense, the more readily we can sympa- 
thize with others. Half the cruelty in the world is 
the direct result of stupid incapacity to put one's 
self in the other man's place." 

It becomes teachers to walk close to the line of 
the Golden Rule in all their relations. Could they 
always do so, it would be to them a crown of glory, 
and a great inspiration and uplift in the lives of 
those under their instruction. 

Kvery member of a profession, being entitled to 
all its privileges and immunities, is under obligation 
to exert his best abilities to maintain its dignity 
and honor, to exalt its standing, and to extend its 
usefulness. He is in duty bound to be himself, as 
far as in him lies, an honor and an ornament to his 
profession. 

Kvery teacher owes it to his profession to be the 
best teacher, the most efficient, the most successful 
teacher he is capable of becoming. And his duty 
to his profession, and to himself as well, requires 
him to refrain from doing whatever tends to lower 
the public estimate of teachers and teaching. 

It becomes the teacher to magnify his office. He 
should earnestly strive after such personal attain- 
ments and such special fitness for the work, and so 
carry himself in all his relations, as to reflect honor 
upon his calling. This is one of the first duties he 
owes to his profession, and in meeting this obliga- 
tion he promotes his own highest interest. In a 



49 



THE TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 

narrow view, his duty to his profession may at 
times seem to clash with his own interest, but in a 
broad and right view it does not. 

Teachers sometimes complain of the low place 
teaching has in public esteem. No other influence 
is so great in this direction as the unprofessional 
conduct of teachers themselves. The lack of deli- 
cacy and sense of propriety manifested in the impor- 
tunity and persistence with which teachers often 
press their claims for appointments, to say nothing 
of such grosser violations of good taste and good 
morals as underbidding, and in other ways crowding 
a fellow- teacher out of his place, does much to bring 
teachers and teaching into disrepute. There seems 
no good reason why the same general rules of pro- 
priety which prevail in other professions, in the 
matter of securing employment, should not be ob- 
served among teachers. 

A lawyer must wait for clients to come to him. 
It is altogether unprofessional for him to make any 
advances or take any steps in the direction of secur- 
ing business. When he has made due preparation 
and has been duly licensed to practice law, he may 
put up a sign, insert his card in the newspapers, 
and wait for business to come. A lawyer, now on 
the bench, once said to me that only the scavengers 
of the profession were ever known to seek clients or 
make direct application for employment. Such 
seems to be the unwritten law in the legal profession. 

The physician, likewise, must wait for patients. 



5o 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

Imagine an enterprising young physician calling at 
the residence of a sick man, presenting his testi- 
monials, and asking to be employed to take charge 
of the case. No, the physician who has any regard 
for his reputation in his profession always waits to 
be called. It is deemed unprofessional for a mem- 
ber of the medical profession even to draw attention 
by special advertising of any kind, in the news- 
papers or otherwise. He who does it is liable to get 
to himself the name of quack. A friend in Phila- 
delphia once called my attention to the very modest 
signs of the physicians of that city: — "Dr. John 
Smith," on a simple door plate — nothing more. 

It is worthy of note in regard to both these pro- 
fessions that those most highly cultured and refined 
are most scrupulous in the observance of these pro- 
prieties. 

Perhaps the case of the clergyman is more analo- 
gous to that of the teacher. The lawyer serves his 
individual clients, and the physician his individual 
patients; while the clergyman serves his parish and 
the teacher his school district. How does the clergy- 
man secure his parish ? He, too, waits to be called. 
It has been reported that there are place-hunters 
among the clergy, and that there are schemes and 
devices for securing good places, to which knowing 
ones sometimes resort; but such cases are excep- 
tional. The large majority of clergymen observe 
the commonly recognized proprieties of their profes- 
sion in such matters. I have known but one instance 



5i 



THE T^ACHBR AND HIS WORK. 

in which a preacher made direct application to be 
employed as pastor of a church. In that case the 
disgusted officials denied the applicant the oppor- 
tunity of being heard as a candidate. 

The custom is different among teachers. They 
make direct and open application for places, and are 
expected to do so, and not only so; they often com- 
pete with each other and strive for positions like 
tradesmen in the market. The sense of delicacy 
and regard for the proprieties, which largely prevail 
in other professions, seem almost wanting among 
teachers; and this not in the lower ranks only, nor 
among those who seek schools as stepping-stones to 
more lucrative employment. Those who hold the 
higher and more permanent positions are often the 
chief scramblers. 

These things ought not so to be. Teachers ought 
to receive rather than make proposals. There may 
be no disgrace in making open application for em- 
ployment under a board of education, but it is 
indelicate and unseemly, to say the least. There is 
a measure of embarrassment about it, often amount- 
ing to humiliation, that is far from agreeable to a 
sensitive and refined nature. Teachers of cultivated 
taste and refined feelings will naturally shrink from 
obtruding themselves upon the attention of those 
who, for aught they know, may have reasons 
against their employment. It certainly would be 
better for all concerned, if the same unwritten rules 
of propriety were in force among teachers which 



52 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

prevail in the other professions. All the schools 
would have teachers, as many teachers would have 
places as now, and teachers and teaching would 
be held in higher repute. At the very least, it 
should be deemed unprofessional in the extreme for 
a teacher to make direct or indirect application for a 
place that is not known to be vacant. 

It is the duty of school authorities to seek out 
the teachers best adapted to their needs and condi- 
tions; and to an intelligent and right-minded trustee 
or director all importunity of teachers for positions 
must seem an impertinence. It would be well for 
boards of education everywhere to assert their pre- 
rogative and discriminate against all importunate 
place- seekers. 

But, unfortunately, boards of education are often 
the greatest offenders against propriety in these 
matters. They encourage place-hunting. They re- 
quire teachers, even their old and tried teachers, to 
make application year after year, even going so far 
in some cases as to refuse to consider those who do 
not formally apply — a species of humiliation which 
teachers should always resent. The excellent grace 
of humility can be cultivated in other ways. I call 
to mind, in this connection, an interesting little 
episode to which I was witness several years ago. 
A new member of a city board of education had 
secured the chairmanship of the committee on teach- 
ers; and to signalize his advent to this important 
position, he notified the teachers, seventy or eighty 



53 



THK TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 

in number, that all who desired re-election must 
present to said committeeman an application in due 
form. The first teacher approached on the subject 
was the very efficient and popular lady principal of 
the high school, whose place would have been hard 
to fill. She emphasized with her foot the single 
word which came from her lips — " Never! " It is 
scarcely necessary to add that the committeeman 
changed his plan. It is a very absurd procedure for 
a board of education to require of its teachers a 
formal application for reappointment, when, as not 
infrequently is the case, the corps contains teachers 
whom the board does not wish to re-employ. 

All the proprieties of the case require a board of 
education to re-elect promptly and without solicita- 
tion all the approved teachers of its corps who do not 
give notice of a purpose to retire, and the same 
proprieties require the teachers to accept their ap- 
pointments with reasonable promptness, and to hold 
inviolate the contract thus made. 

The election should take place at or before the 
close of the schools at the end of the school year, 
and those not to be retained should have private 
information of the fact before it is known to the 
public. It is cowardly in a board of education to 
put off the election until after the schools have 
closed and the teachers have scattered. It leaves 
teachers in a state of suspense and anxiety for 
which there is no justification. At least, the 
escape from ' ' unpleasantness ' ' which it is some- 



54 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

times meant to afford, is not a sufficient justifi- 
cation. 

There ought to be, if there is not, a day of reck- 
oning for the needless anxiety and pain which teach- 
ers are sometimes made to suffer by the thought- 
lessness and heartlessness of boards of education. 
Cases often arise in which it becomes necessary to 
discontinue the services of teachers, but in all such 
cases the teachers concerned have rights and feel- 
ings which trustees are in duty bound to respect. 
Cases like the following are not rare, in which an 
excellent lady suffered hardship and wrong at the 
hands of a board of education she had served faith- 
fully for a number of years. The election was 
deferred until late in the summer vacation. This 
lady, as well as the others, had been asked whether 
she desired re-election and replied in the affirmative. 
She left for her home in a distant state, telling her 
friends she would return when' schools opened in 
September. So confident was she of re-election that 
she declined an offer of a position elsewhere. But 
when the list of teachers appeared in the papers 
after the election, her name was not among them, 
and the inquiries of her friends could elicit no ex- 
planation. Her living, which she shared with a 
widowed mother, was cut off without warning or 
a word of explanation, her reputation was damaged 
needlessly, her spirit was broken, and her health 
seriously impaired. She was a lady of more than 
average ability and attainments, and of excellent 



55 



the teacher and his work. 

Christian character and womanly qualities; but for 
some reason unknown to her, she was not in favor 
with her trustees. Whether or not the school au- 
thorities had sufficient ground for discontinuing her 
services, the heartless and cowardly way in which 
it was done cannot be too severely censured. Trus- 
tees and supervisors, who treat their teachers thus 
stand greatly in need of some elementary lessons on 
the Golden Rule. 

, Not many years ago the people of a flourishing 
little city on the Western Reserve were much agi- 
tated over the unceremonious decapitation of nearly 
a score of teachers out of a corps of a hundred or 
more, in most cases without the slightest previous 
intimation of their impending fate. The board met 
in 'secret session, and most of the victims had 
their first information of what had befallen them 
from the next day's papers. Several of those be- 
headed had served' in their places faithfully and 
efficiently for a quarter of a century. An aggrava- 
tion of the wrong was in the gibbeting of these old, 
faithful servants in the headlines of sensational 
articles in the daily papers. 

There will, of course, come a time when old 
teachers who have served long and well must be re- 
tired; but there ought to be found a more humane, 
a less cruel way of doing it. With proper relations 
between superintendent and board and between 
superintendent and teachers, much of the hurt of 
such retirements might be avoided. 

56 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

There are some tilings for teachers to consider in 
relation to such matters. It behooves them to recog- 
nize fully the fact that the schools exist not for 
them, but for the children, and to remember always 
that it is the part of wisdom to prepare in fair 
weather for the rainy day that is sure to come. It 
is not always, nor generally, the part of wisdom to re- 
sent and resist an adverse decision of the powers 
that be. The general presumption is that such 
action is not wholly without good ground. The first 
duty of a teacher who fails of re-election is to look 
well within for the cause before he lays blame at 
other doors. After a rigid self-examination he 
should deal candidly and honestly with himself, 
in accordance with the facts he finds, and be pre- 
pared to profit by his experience in a new field. It 
is never the part of wisdom for a teacher who has 
lost his place to make of himself a disturbing ele- 
ment in community by remaining to find fault with 
his successor, hoping thereby to secure his own re- 
instatement. Better far devote his energies to 
fitting himself for better work in a new field, when- 
ever it shall open. 

Teachers who have been re-elected should recog- 
nize their obligation to respond without unreasonable 
delay. It should be considered unprofessional for a 
teacher to withhold his acceptance until the last 
moment, except with consent, in the hope of secur- 
ing a better offer. And once a position has been 
accepted, the binding obligation of the contract 



57 



^HE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

should be recognized and scrupulously kept. It has 
been sometimes charged, and not without reason, 
that the obligation of a contract rests lightly upon 
the teacher's conscience. A teacher's contract with 
a board of education is as binding as any other con- 
tract, and should be so considered. Once the en- 
gagement is entered into, the teacher is not at 
liberty to entertain a proposition from any other 
source, except with the full and free consent of the 
other party to the contract. 

Teachers should be examples of integrity and 
honor in all these things, even though it should 
prove for the time to their pecuniary disadvantage. 
It will pay in the long run. It is a pleasure to 
make honorable mention of a case brought to my 
notice, in which a young lady teacher showed a high 
sense of honor. She had been recommended to two 
boards of education, and had accepted the first 
offer. A few days later, from the other board came 
the offer of a more desirable position at a salary 
fifteen dollars a month better. ' ' The position, ' ' 
she replied, "is just what I wanted, and I would 
gladly have accepted it; but my word is out, I can- 
not take it. " 

Another similar case comes to mind. I was in 
correspondence with a young man about his taking 
the principalship of the schools of a village. The 
letter containing a definite offer of the position was 
delayed some time by falling into wrong hands, and 
he accepted a country school at a much smaller 

58 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

salary. When the letter reached him he expressed 
his disappointment and regret, but ended the matter 
by saying, ' ' I have promised to teach my home 
school, and father thinks I cannot honorably ask to 
be released." These are examples worthy of imi- 
tation. 

Teachers are sometimes too eager for advance- 
ment. They are scarcely well settled in one posi- 
tion before they begin to cast about them for a 
better one. Gen. Sherman's advice to a graduating 
class at West Point is equally appropriate for teach- 
ers; " Do not be impatient for promotion." The 
success that comes by earnest work and patient 
waiting is worth having. Many people have made 
shipwreck by pushing themselves into ' ' good 
places ' ' before they have well proved their powers. 
The itch for promotion is not a favorable symptom. 
Concern for fitness and faithfulness in present duty 
are more desirable and more promising than ambi- 
tion for self- advancement. Make a demand for 
your services. High qualifications are always in 
demand. It is true that modest worth is sometimes 
crowded out by brazen incompetence. But be not 
impatient; incompetence will have run its course 
and will make way for you by the time you are 
fully ready. Eminent fitness waits not long for 
opportunity. 



59 



Preparation and Adaptation. 



"The first characteristic of life everywhere is change, 
growth, adaptation to modifying circumstances and events." 



IV. 

Preparation and Adaptation. 

THE more one thinks about the work of teaching, 
the more exalted, the more noble does it seem. 
When directly engaged in the work, I usually had 
a considerable measure of enthusiasm — sometimes, 
as I now see, more zeal than wisdom. But looking 
back over the way by which I have come, and look- 
ing out upon the present aspect of the work, I am 
filled with a more intense enthusiasm. I am glad 
that it was my privilege, since there was no other 
way for me, to grope along with some glimmerings 
of light here and there on my pathway. I rejoice 
that my mistakes were no greater, and that with 
each slip or fall I had courage to rise and renew my 
efforts. 

It is some comfort to reflect, in view of one's 
own short-comings and failures, that success in life 
is rare except through repeated failures. Robert 
Louis Stevenson has declared that our business in 
life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good 
spirits. Failures stand thick in every pathway. 
The successful people are those who will not ac- 
knowledge themselves beaten because they stumble 
and fall, but persist in getting up and pressing for- 
ward. The life of the Great Man of Nazareth even 



63 



the; teacher and his work. 

was full of failures. ' ' He failed in His preach- 
ing — only a few received Him; He failed in his teach- 
ing — very few believed Him; He failed to convince 
the world of His mission — they rejected Him and 
crucified Him." Yet how grandly He succeeded! 
He showed the greatness of His spirit by His pa- 
tient endurance and persistence through a whole 
life of failure. 

There is great satisfaction in the retrospect of a 
life of hardness endured, of obstacles surmounted, 
of attainments made. It is one of nature's benefi- 
cent provisions that in such a retrospect the follies 
and mistakes grow dim as they recede, and all that 
is worthy and noble grows brighter as the years 
goby. 

This old world has seen no other such age as the 
present. Things are not what they were. We are 
making history very fast now. Any observant and 
thoughtful person who can look back over fifty 
years of life, cannot fail to be profoundly impressed 
with the rush of events. This last decade of the 
old century holds more of good for the world 
than any other decade of the century. The good 
time coming is hastening. It is grand to live in 
such a time, and grander still to have an important 
part in forming the character and shaping the life of 
such an age. What an honor to be called to the 
work of teaching in this day! — especially when 
one's eyes have been opened to see the work in its 
true light. 

64 



PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 

It is not easy to estimate how large a part teach- 
ers have had in the marvelous development of the 
race in the last fifty years, much less to estimate 
truly the part they have in guiding the forces which 
are now operating for the further uplifting of hu- 
manity. A soldier in the midst of the fight cannot 
always see how the battle is going, nor can an actor 
on any part of the world's stage always judge cor- 
rectly of the true relations and the full effect of the 
part he is playing. Certain it is that the schools of 
this day are much in advance of those of fifty years 
ago. The discipline is better, and the teaching 
is better. The pupils are more tractable, more 
easily governed, and better behaved; and as a rule 
they are surrounded by a more wholesome and 
invigorating moral atmosphere. 

For his important work the teacher requires 
special preparation and special adaptation. I refer 
not now to the general preparation, in the way of 
scholarship and professional knowledge, which 
every teacher should have, a voucher for which, 
in the form of a license, he should secure before 
making an engagement to teach; but rather to the 
special preparation necessary for a particular field of 
labor. The work should be undertaken with full 
knowledge and well matured plans. If he is to 
teach in a graded school, the teacher should know 
beforehand what grade or grades he is to teach, and 
should make himself familiar with every detail of 

65 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

the work prescribed for his department, — the text- 
books used, the rules and regulations for the gov- 
ernment of the schools, and the prevailing practices 
and customs of the school and of the community, 
which sometimes obtain almost the force of law. In 
these daj'-s of close supervision of graded schools, it 
is comparatively an easy matter for the teacher to 
gain such a knowledge of the work in any depart- 
ment as to enable him to adapt himself readily to 
his place in the system. 

The new teacher in a country school has a more 
difficult task. In most rural communities the 
teacher is, in great measure, a law unto himself. 
He must devise his own plans and methods and 
carry them out as well as he can without the guid- 
ance and support upon which the teacher in graded 
schools relies, and to this end he has need of special 
preparation. 

i. He should acquaint himself with the com- 
munity in which he is to teach. Country neighbor- 
hoods not far apart sometimes differ widely, and 
the measures which a teacher may successfully carry 
out in one may not answer at all in another. About 
the year 1850, I taught successfully a school in 
a Scotch-Irish community in the Miami Valley. 
On account of larger salary I accepted a call to 
teach the following winter in an adjoining district, 
containing a considerable German element, and 
undertook to carry out there the plans and methods 
which had proven so successful in the other school. 

66 



PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 

The result was a failure. My management did not 
meet with general approval, and the school dwindled 
to almost nothing before the end of the term. My 
patrons and I did not see from the same standpoint, 
and were not in harmony. 

Besides a knowledge of the intelligence and 
character of his community, the teacher of a coun- 
try school should have, before beginning his work, 
a good understanding of the prevailing educational 
sentiment of his district. It is a matter of the first 
importance for him to know whether his people are 
progressive or otherwise, and whether or not he 
may rely upon their co-operation in carrying out 
improved plans of organization, management, and 
instruction, that he may make his plans accordingly. 

2. A teacher should know as much as possible 
about the previous management of his school. It 
would be profitable for him to know whether 
it has been controlled by reason and love, or by force 
and fear, and whether the government has been 
rigid or slack. As to the teaching, it would be well to 
know whether that has been thorough or superficial, 
and what habits of application and self-reliance 
have been formed in the pupils. Of course definite 
and full knowledge of these things can only be 
obtained by actual test in the school room; but 
a general impression, of great service in forming 
plans, may be gained by a teacher who knows how 
to keep eyes and ears open and use his tongue 
wisely. This last is of special importance. Words 

67 



the; ybacher and his work. 

of disparagement or criticism are not at all in place 
at such a time. Whatever of good is learned con- 
cerning previous management should be com- 
mended; but what is not commendable should be 
passed in silence. No word of censure or disparage- 
ment of previous management should escape the 
lips of the new teacher. 

3. Concerning present conditions, his informa- 
tion should be as full and exact as possible. The 
number of pupils likely to attend, the number of 
classes and the stage of advancement of each in 
each study, the text-books used, the maps, charts, 
and other appliances furnished, are some of the 
things concerning which the teacher would do well 
to inform himself before beginning his work. It 
would greatly facilitate the work in country schools 
if teachers were required to leave for their suc- 
cessors a complete record of all these things. Such 
a record might include a roll of each class, the 
standing of each member in each study, and a gen- 
eral statement of the work accomplished. 

4. He should know of any special difficulties or 
peculiar cases that may exist. There is some di- 
versity of sentiment among teachers on this point, 
some maintaining that if there is a bad boy in the 
school, or a troublesome parent in the district, the 
teacher will learn the fact soon enough, and to be 
informed beforehand may beget prejudice or bias in 
his mind. To this it may be answered that a teacher 
is supposed to have some discretion; and if, knowing 

68 



PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 

the disposition and tendencies of a bad boy, he 
is unable to deal wisely with him, he is not likely to 
manage him more successfully by coming upon him 
unawares. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. 

I recall an instance in which a teacher turned to 
good account her foreknowledge of the bad boy 
in her school. A lady was compelled to give up her 
school in term-time on account of sickness at home, 
and her successor, before taking charge, spent a day 
in the school with the old teacher. It happened on 
this day that the bad boy manifested himself. He 
was a stout lad, with a large head, short, thick neck, 
and a bulldog face. The teacher whipped him in 
the forenoon, and in the afternoon the father came 
and there was a ' ' heap of trouble. ' ' The new 
teacher thought the prospect not very inviting, but 
she studied the situation and kept her own counsel. 
The following Monday morning she took charge. 
Soon after the opening of school, looking over to 
the bad boy's corner, she said, "Jimmy, will you 
come to my desk? " When Jimmy came forward, 
wondering what was to happen, she asked, ' ' Jim- 
my, do you know where I board? — with Mrs. 
Smith, down on the corner of the next street be- 
yond the cooper shop." And Jimmy answered, 
"Yes ma'am; I know where Mrs. Smith lives." 
" I wonder," continued the teacher, " whether you 
would be so kind as to run down and ask Mrs. 
Smith to give you my knife; it lies on the table 
in my room." Of course he would, and away he 

69 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

runs, and in a few minutes returns and hands the 
knife to the teacher. As he takes his seat there is 
on his face an expression which plainly says, " She'll 
do. She understands me. She's the right kind of 
a teacher." The teacher had gained a friend, and 
the bad boy suddenly disappeared from that school 
and was known there no more that term. 

5. The condition of the school house and its 
surroundings should be looked to. This is the 
business of the directors, but as they are apt to 
neglect it, it will pay the teacher to give it his 
attention. He should visit the premises before 
the opening day and see that all things are in readi- 
ness. All broken furniture should be repaired or 
replaced, broken lights of glass reset, door and 
window fastenings put in order, broken gates, 
fences and walks made good, and house and out- 
buildings made clean and kept so. Especially 
should all obscene pictures and vulgar pencilings 
about the premises be erased, covered with paint, 
or burned with fire. Some schools are schools 
of vice because of the vileness tolerated about the 
premises. No amount of effort and pains necessary 
to prevent such a condition is too great for the 
teacher. Better abate the school as a nuisance than 
that such things continue. 

6. The teacher should prepare himself. By con- 
sidering well the work before him and the surround- 
ing conditions, and by communing with his own 
heart, he should seek to bring himself into right 



70 



PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 

attitude and right relations to all his environment. 
He should consider that the contract he has entered 
into with the school directors is not the only con- 
tract by which he is bound; but that between the 
lines there is written another, more sacred, more 
binding, with each child to come under his care and 
instruction, to be to each all that the word teacher 
implies — a faithful and true friend, a guide and in- 
spiration. The true teacher will so feel the binding 
obligation of this higher contract as almost to lose 
sight of the one he has with the directors, looking 
upon the latter merely as a necessary form prelim- 
inary to that which is more vital and real. 

It is very important for the teacher to form a 
just estimate of his work, taking into account all 
the conditions and surroundings. Indulgence in 
too high ideals is probably not the besetting sin 
of teachers. A high ideal is very desirable when 
tempered with good judgment. It is possible for 
one's ideals to carry him away into the realm of the 
visionary and the impracticable. It is well for the 
teacher to bear in mind that his school district does 
not lie in Utopia, and to discriminate pretty clearly 
between what, under existing circumstances, can be 
done and what cannot be done. It is never worth 
while to attempt the impossible. A wise mariner will 
not deliberately run his ship upon a rock, on the 
ground that the rock has no business to be there. 
It is sometimes best to tack a little. 

I recall an interesting case of a young man of 



7i 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

good ability and fair scholarship, who engaged to 
teach a country school in one of the Western Re- 
serve counties. He had a high ideal, and was 
ambitious to excel. When he received his certifi- 
cate from the examiners he expressed his deter- 
mination to have the best school in the county. 
He had not been teaching long, however, when 
trouble began. He had progressive ideas and un- 
dertook to carry out measures which may have 
been well enough in themselves, but which met 
with determined opposition in that community. In 
the discord and contention that arose, the teacher 
said and did some unwise things, and about the 
middle of the term the directors met and discharged 
him. He had the satisfaction of collecting his full 
salary, after two trials in court, though, doubtless, 
his attorney's fees absorbed the most of it. For 
the want of a little tact and adaptation to existing 
conditions, the teacher suffered seriously in reputa- 
tion as well as in pocket, and the district lost the 
greater part of a winter's schooling. 

It is well sometimes to stoop a little when one's 
head is in danger. It is said that Benjamin Frank- 
lin, when a young man, had occasion to call on old 
Dr. Cotton Mather. On taking leave, Dr. Mather 
showed him out through a dark passage, and at one 
point said to him, "Stoop a little here." But 
Franklin, not clearly understanding the direction, 
walked on and his head struck a beam overhead. 
Whereupon Dr. Mather turned and said, ' ' Young 



72 



PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 

man, if you'll learn to stoop a little as you go 
through the world, you'll save yourself many a 
hard thump. ' ' 

A word of caution may not be out of place here. 
One must not be always stooping. It is well to 
learn when to stoop and when to stand and walk 
erect. Be this your rule: Never stoop or yield 
when a question of right or duty is involved, even 
at the risk of some hard thumps; but in matters of 
mere preference or expediency it is wise to avoid all 
needless thumps. And even when thumps must be 
taken in the performance of duty, there is often a 
way of breaking the force of the blow by interposing 
a cushion of blandness and suavity. 

Much experience and observation lead me to lay 
down this rule for young teachers, to be taken with 
exceptions and modifications above noted: Adapt 
yourself and your methods to the needs and expecta- 
tions of the people you serve. 

I was much interested, some years ago, in the 
experience of two girls who went out from the same 
high school, and taught successively the same coun- 
try school. The first, Miss B., made herself very 
much at home among her patrons, and was very 
popular. She boarded at the house of a farmer not 
far from the school. When the good house-wife 
was unusually busy and the supper was late, she 
would get for herself a slice of bread and a cup of 
milk ; and when milking time came she would some- 
times say, ' ' Let me have a pail ; I can milk. ' ' 



73 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Thus she made herself not only agreeable but help- 
ful. She had the happy faculty of adapting her- 
self to her surroundings, and of putting herself in 
sympathy with those among whom she labored. 
She carried the same spirit into her school, and in 
the same way won the hearts of her pupils. She 
became a very popular teacher, and soon received 
a call to a better position. 

The next season, Miss R., the other one of the 
two girls, was employed to teach the same school 
and boarded at the same place. She was the more 
scholarly, and in many respects the more promising, 
of the two. But her notions of the fitness of things 
were very different from those of Miss B. On 
her return from school at the close of the day, 
she retired to the parlor with her book or magazine, 
and awaited the call to tea. She knew little about 
cows or milking, and cared less. She took no 
interest in the things which interested the people 
about her, and was altogether out of harmony with 
her surroundings. Her pupils and their parents 
were not slow in coming to the conclusion, justly or 
unjustly, that she felt herself above them, and her 
influence, in school and out, was small. She gave 
up the school in disgust before the end of the term. 

This is a true story. The two cases are typical 
ones, from which young teachers may learn an im- 
portant lesson. 



74 



School Organization. 



" I have seen the school in operation, so perfectly sys- 
tematized, all its arrangements so complete, and its depart- 
ments so perfectly adjusted, that the working of its ma- 
chinery not only produced no friction, but created order, 
interest, and zeal, such as secured the desired object. . . . 
On the other hand, I have often wit- 
nessed the utter failure of apparently competent teachers, 
for the want of system in the arrangement and classification 
of their schools. Organization is the first business of the 
school room, and nothing else should be attempted until 
this is complete." — Orcutt. 



V. 

School Organization. 

THE proper organization of a school consists 
mainly in such an adjustment of the school 
machinery, such classification of the pupils and 
assignment of work to each, and the adoption of 
such regulations as will secure constant employ- 
ment, efficient instruction, and the greatest moral 
influence. The aim and tendency of all the adjust- 
ments and arrangements should be to " remove 
friction, induce order, and secure cheerful and ef- 
fective work." 

There is reason to believe that the importance 
and difficulty of school organization are under- 
estimated. This is especially true of the rural 
schools. One who has had large experience bears 
this testimony: " I have visited more than a thou- 
sand country schools, and I have not found one 
in twenty well organized. Many of the worst 
organized schools I have found in the hands of 
teachers claiming from five to forty years' ex- 
perience." In an examination of teachers on 
"Theory and Practice," one thing asked of the ap- 
plicants was to describe a well organized school. 
Not one of the twenty-six applicants gave evidence 
of any clear knowledge on the subject, and more 



77 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

than half of them betrayed utter ignorance of what 
is implied by organization, though many of them 
were of mature years and considerable experience 
as teachers. Some seemed to confound organiza- 
tion with preserving order and conducting recita- 
tions. 

Much of a teacher's success depends upon his 
skill in organizing. A school may be so organized 
and operated as to become almost an automatic 
mechanism, reducing the demand upon the teach- 
er's attention and vitality to the minimum. To 
this end the organization should be as simple as 
possible. A school may be too much organized. 
Devices may be multiplied and the machinery be- 
come so complicated as to tax the teacher's 
strength and skill to keep all in operation. A sim- 
ple machine is more easily operated and less liable 
to get out of order than one more complicated. 

One of the first things requiring attention in the 
organization of a school is classification or grading. 
Every school should be a graded school. Pupils of 
equal or like attainments should be placed in the 
same class or grade and receive the same instruc- 
tion. A close classification in a system of graded 
schools requires all the pupils of a given grade, 
or standard, as it is called in England, to pursue 
the same studies at the same time, keeping abreast 
in all. What is sometimes called a loose classifica- 
tion permits pupils to pursue different studies 
with different classes. The former is much more 



78 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

desirable. The latter is justifiable, in city schools, 
only in exceptional cases or as a temporary ex- 
pedient. 

The number of classes or grades in a system 
of graded schools usually corresponds to the num- 
ber of years required by the average pupil to com- 
plete the course of study. In most cities and towns 
there are eight yearly grades below the high school. 
By this classification, pupils who fail of promotion 
are compelled to fall back a year; and strong, bright 
pupils cannot advance faster than the class to which 
they belong, except by jumping an entire year. 
Thus there is often a conflict between the good 
of the individual pupil and what seems to be the 
general good. Some remedy for this evil has been 
found in the plan of semi-annual classification, 
which makes two distinct grades for each year of 
the course of study. This makes the steps between 
grades shorter, and the transition from grade to 
grade easier. Pupils who fail of promotion fall 
back but half a year, and capable and ambitious 
pupils may sometimes leave their grade and ad- 
vance to the next without undue effort or strain. 
The plan has been in successful operation in the 
schools of Akron for more than twenty years. A 
class has been graduated from the high school and 
promotions have been made in all the schools twice 
each year. The chief advantages are a closer and 
better classification and shorter and easier steps 
from one class to another. It is sometimes objected 



79 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

that the frequency of promotions does not permit 
pupils to remain long enough with the same teacher 
for the best results. This might be overcome by 
the German plan of promoting the teachers with 
their pupils. 

It should be observed that semi-annual classifi- 
cation cannot be readily carried out in the smaller 
towns, because of the tendency to multiply classes 
and to give to each teacher too large a number of 
daily recitations. It is practicable only when a 
sufficient number of pupils of like attainments can 
be brought together to form schools of not more 
than two semi-annual grades each. 

With pupils old enough to prepare and recite 
lessons, the best classification for effective work 
is that which gives to each teacher two grades. 
Some teachers prefer an entire school of one grade. 
It requires less daily preparation on the part of the 
teacher, and some lessons and exercises can be 
given to the whole school at once, thereby saving 
labor and affording time and opportunity for giving 
help in the preparation of lessons to those that need 
it. But an entire school of forty or fifty pupils 
makes too large a class to recite together in the 
principal studies, such as arithmetic, grammar, 
or history. A division into sections becomes a 
necessity, and only those who have tried it can 
appreciate the difficulty of hearing two divisions 
of the same class recite successively the same lesson 
in the same room. I have never known the 



80 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

experiment to be tried with satisfactory results. 
All things considered, that is the best classification 
which gives to each teacher two different grades for 
alternate study and recitation. It should be care- 
fully noted here that no possible classification can 
relieve the teacher from painstaking individual 
instruction. With the best classification that can 
be made, under the most favorable conditions, the 
teacher who fully understands his business will 
still find a necessity for dealing with individuals. 
Children cannot be well taught in bulk. Individuals 
must be studied and instruction and training must 
be adapted to the needs of each. One of the hard 
problems for the young teacher is so to conduct the 
class recitation as to meet and supply the need 
of each individual in the class; but it is a problem 
which must be solved. Complete success can be 
attained in no other way. 

The classification of country schools presents 
serious difficulties, requiring the exercise of good 
judgment, patience, courage, and perseverance. 
Of course no such classification as that which pre- 
vails in city schools is possible in the country. The 
wide range of subjects which must be taught by one 
teacher and the small number of pupils of same 
attainment and ability in a country school are in- 
superable obstacles. Besides, the irregular habits 
of many country people in regard to school attend- 
ance have a tendency to increase the difficulties; 
and because of the difficulties, few country teachers 



81 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

make more than the feeblest attempts at classifica- 
tion. Every country school should be classified, 
and its classification should be the best that exist- 
ing conditions will allow. Proper efforts in this 
direction may be made to serve as an antidote for 
irregular attendance and other existing evils. The 
starting point is the adoption of a course of study, a 
matter we shall consider later. This becomes the 
guide in classification. In no case should there be in 
a country school more than one grade for each year 
of the course of study, and often in practice there 
will be less. Classes can often be consolidated with 
advantage. Pupils who read well in the third 
reader may be merged with the fourth reader class 
with profit to themselves and the school. Instead 
of forming a new geography class each year, or 
whenever there are three or four pupils ready to 
take up the subject, let these pupils push ahead in 
other studies and fall into the next class in geog- 
raphy when the time comes to start it; then ease 
up a little all around in the other studies and push 
the geography for a time. By thoughtfulness and 
skillful management of this kind, the number of 
classes may be kept at the minimum and more and 
better work accomplished. The classification would 
not be exact or close, but it is not best that it 
should be. The organization of any school should 
be sufficiently flexible to admit of adjustment 
and adaptation to existing conditions. When exact- 
ness or niceness of organization conflicts with the 



82 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

highest good of the pupils, the organization should 
yield. Yet all this is consistent with a steady- 
holding of the main course. A ship-master often 
finds it necessary to tack this way and that way, 
yet he steadily holds the main course and reaches 
his destination. 

Very gratifying progress has been made in the 
past few years in grading country schools and sys- 
tematizing their work. The schools in many town- 
ships are successfully pursuing a carefully devised 
course of study, and granting certificates of gradua- 
tion to those who complete it. Knough has been 
done in this direction to demonstrate the desirable- 
ness and practicability of classification and system 
in these schools, and the present indications are 
that in a short time the shiftless, slipshod ways 
heretofore generally prevalent will be relegated 
entirely to sleepy hollow. 

The preparation of the best course of instruc- 
tion for any system of schools is an undertaking at 
once important and difficult. Its importance is 
apparent; its difficulty becomes more and more 
apparent as the subject is studied. The man that 
presumes to say with positiveness that this or that 
course of instruction is absolutely best in all respects 
for a school or a system of schools gives good 
ground for the suspicion that he has more to learn. 
There is room for honest difference of opinion 
among the wisest. 

The ability to construct a judicious course of 

83 



THE TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 

study implies at least three things: i. A right 
understanding of the ends of education. 2. A clear 
and comprehensive knowledge of the nature and 
capabilities of the being to be educated. 3. A 
correct estimate of the educative value of the vari- 
ous branches of knowledge. Probably the best 
that anyone can do is to adapt to existing condi- 
tions, by his own thought and experience, the con- 
clusions of the wisest and best who have studied 
the problem. 

These and other questions, immediately con- 
front one who undertakes, in an intelligent way, to 
prepare a school course of study: What studies 
shall be included? In what order shall they be 
taken up? How many and what subjects shall 
be prescribed for simultaneous study ? How much 
time shall be given to each? What portion of 
each subject shall be assigned to each grade or to 
each period of time ? 

It is not my purpose to discuss all these ques- 
tions in detail. I shall confine my observations 
mainly to the first, with some attention to one or 
two phases of some of the others. 

The experience, thought, and observation of 
more than forty years devoted to public school work 
have led me to the conclusion that more is attempted 
and less of real value accomplished in our ele- 
mentary schools than comports with the highest 
well-being of the pupils. There is a tendency to 
display of ostentatious learning rather than to solid 

84 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

attainment in practical knowledge and useful culture. 
There is inflation in education as well as in finance. 

The essentials, the warp and woof of an ele- 
mentary course of instruction for the common 
schools of this country seem to me to include mainly 
these three: English, penmanship, and arithmetic. 
A youth well grounded in these is better prepared 
for life than one who has a smattering of many 
sciences without proficiency in these essentials. To 
these should be added, under favoring conditions, 
the less essential, but yet important branches of 
vocal music, drawing, and as much geography and 
American history as may be gained from an ordi- 
nary first book on these subjects. Time spent in 
memorizing the details of geography and history is 
waste, and might be used to greater profit. 

The study and practice of mother tongue must 
of necessity occupy a large share of time and atten- 
tion in elementary schools, inasmuch as the pupil's 
success at every stage depends upon his mastery of 
the vernacular. My observation is that more pupils 
fail in the high school because of defective training 
in English than from all other causes. An intelli- 
gent comprehension of ordinary English and tol- 
erable accuracy and facility in its use should con- 
stitute the chief corner stone of our American 
education. Language training in common schools 
should include — 

i. Reading. Intelligent and intelligible reading 
is fundamental. If after attending school seven or 

85 



the; teacher and his work. 

eight years pupils of average natural ability are 
found unable to read at sight, fluently and with 
expression indicating a good grasp of the thought, 
any piece of ordinary English composition, the 
training is seriously at fault. No part of school 
work is more important than this, and none makes 
greater demand for skill and painstaking on the 
part of the teacher; but these are just the qualities 
which teachers should have. Nor should pupils 
leave the common school without a taste for good 
reading and some knowledge of what is worth 
reading. This is a large and rich field which well 
repays cultivation. It reaches into the whole range 
of literature and literary study. 

2. By practice in written spelling, and by the 
fixed habit of attention to the correct spelling of all 
the words he uses, the pupil should be able, at the 
end of this common school course, to write a letter 
or other composition without misspelling words in 
common use. 

3. language lessons. Every school exercise 
should be a language lesson. The pupil's attention 
should be strongly and persistently directed and 
held at every point to the right use of words and 
the right construction of sentences. Systematic, 
daily exercises in sentence-building, letter- writing, 
business forms, and oral and written descriptions 
should be continued throughout the course, with 
a view to gaining a practical knowledge and use of 
the language. The time usually spent in city 

86 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

grammar schools, and in many country schools, in 
memorizing grammatical definitions, rules, notes, 
and exceptions, and in analyzing and parsing 
knotty sentences, could be far more profitably spent 
as above indicated. Grammar, as a science, except 
some of its simpler elements, should not be studied 
until the pupils are more mature and have gained 
by use such a practical knowledge of the language 
as will enable them to pursue the study with satis- 
faction and profit. 

As to penmanship, all pupils who continue in 
school long enough to complete such an elementary 
course as that here contemplated, can and should 
acquire the ability to write legibly and neatly. Bad 
writing is not a sign of greatness, though some 
great men have been miserable writers. 

In arithmetic, the first and chief aim should 
be to secure accuracy and rapidity in the perform- 
ance of the fundamental operations. Accurate and 
rapid addition, subtraction, multiplication, and di- 
vision are attainments likely to be of more practical 
value to the majority of pupils than all else in 
arithmetic; and much higher attainment in this 
direction is practicable than that usually reached. 
To this let there be added a thorough and practical 
knowledge of common and decimal fractions, de- 
nominate numbers, mensuration of ordinary sur- 
faces and solids, and the more common applications 
of percentage, and the more abstruse and difficult 
parts of the subject may, without loss, be omitted 

87 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

entirely, or reserved for study after pupils have 
pursued an elementary course in algebra and 
geometry. 

The course of instruction for elementary schools 
here briefly outlined would, if followed, consider- 
ably reduce what is at present attempted in most 
schools; but I am convinced that the greater thor- 
oughness and accuracy contemplated would be more 
than an equivalent for the reduction, constituting a 
better outfit in life for those who go no farther, as 
well as a better preparation for those who are to 
pursue a higher course of study in higher institu- 
tions of learning. 

Before leaving this part of the subject I wish to 
add that there should be in every elementary school 
a place on the program for general exercises, which 
may include oral observation lessons, talks on com- 
mon things, or, as the modern and more high- 
sounding phrase is, nature study. The supply 
of material for such purposes is unlimited; the only 
difficulty lies in choosing. And here, as always in 
school work, the value depends on the wisdom and 
skill of the teacher. 

Teachers and school supervisors in this day need 
to be reminded that it is neither profitable nor pos- 
sible to teach in the common schools all that is 
desirable to know. The educational problem is one 
of selection, and method, and spirit. 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

The course of study for the high-school depart- 
ment of a system of schools must of necessity vary 
with conditions. The high school is comparatively 
a recent growth, and its place and function in our 
educational system is not yet very clearly defined. 
It arose in answer to a demand in our modern 
society for something more in the education of the 
masses than the barest rudiments of knowledge. 
In many instances it has attempted but little besides 
instruction in what are known as the common 
branches; while in other cases it has been expanded 
into a miniature college and made to appear suf- 
ficient for the complete education of youth. It has 
not, as a general rule, been organized and conducted 
with reference to any higher course of training; so 
that those seeking a liberal education have generally 
found it necessary to leave the high school and 
resort to the special preparatory school or to private 
tuition in order to make preparation for entering 
college. 

The high school is likely to remain an important 
feature of our public school system; but the time 
has come for it to find its appropriate field and 
confine itself to it, according to its means and 
opportunities, that it may furnish the best of what 
it undertakes to furnish. It should be adapted to 
its own community — to the needs of the life 
about it. 

There is no good reason why there should not 
be such an adjustment and adaptation of the high 

89 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

school and the college to each other that the in- 
struction and training of the high school may be 
alike serviceable as preparation for college and for 
the work of life. It will not be practicable in all 
cases for the high school to give its students com- 
plete preparation for college; but its work, as far as 
it goes, should be along right lines and should be so 
well done as not to require doing again. 

The length of the high school course of study is 
not a fixed quantity. In the township or the vil- 
lage high school, two years may be all that existing 
conditions will warrant; in other cases three years 
may be best. The fully equipped city high school 
should have a course of four years. Such a course 
should consist mainly of the following four lines of 
study: 

i. language and literature, including the read- 
ing and study of good English authors, English 
grammar and composition in the ratio of three 
lessons in grammar and one in composition, Eng- 
lish orthography and derivation, and sufficient 
Latin for college entrance. 

2. Mathematics, including advanced arithmetic, 
elementary algebra, and plane geometry. 

3. Natural science, including human physiology, 
botany, zoology, physical geography, and the ele- 
ments of physics and chemistry. 

4. General history and the Constitution and 
government of the United States. 



90 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

There are other subjects for which claim is 
made and which find place in the course of study of 
many high schools; but the high school cannot 
teach well everything that is desirable to know. 
The question here also becomes one of choice and 
selection. A few subjects dealt with in a somewhat 
masterly way, is clearly better than a mere smatter 
of many subjects. 

If any one of the above four lines of study is to 
have pre-eminence it should be the first. Nothing 
in general education is of greater value than in- 
struction and training in language, and specially 
the mother tongue. English should be the major 
study for all English-speaking pupils. Even in our 
higher institutions of learning, the study and prac- 
tice of English is gaining more and more the place 
of pre-eminence. But the time has come for the ex- 
ercise of greater common sense in the matter of edu- 
cation. Nothing could be more irrational than our 
stereotyped methodsof training in our own language. 
To beget in our pupils the ability to speak and write 
good English, we consign them to weary months 
and years of memorizing grammatical definitions, 
rules, notes and exceptions, to be applied in the 
analysis and parsing of knotty sentences; and find- 
ing them still unable to write a passable letter or 
composition, we compel them to memorize dreary 
pages of definitions and rules concerning rhetorical 
figures, invention, style, taste, etc., with results 
about the same as before. 



9i 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

A child learns to walk by walking; he learns to 
skate, not by a profound study of the laws of gravi- 
tation and motion, but by buckling on his skates 
and striking out upon the ice. He displays awk- 
wardness at first, and perhaps tumbles a few times, 
but he is soon able to perform with ease and grace 
evolutions which the most profound scientist un- 
practiced would not attempt. Thus it is that from 
infancy to manhood the child is constantly learning 
to do with ease and skill things at first difficult 
which can be learned only by practice. The very 
important attainment of skill in the use of language 
is no exception. Right practice in speaking and 
writing is the only rational way of acquiring a good 
use of English. A closer and more intelligent fol- 
lowing of nature's methods of child training would 
greatly enhance the efficiency and usefulness of the 
schools. 

The daily program is an important item in 
school organization. Every school should have 
a carefully prepared time-table, in which every 
exercise should have its appropriate time and place. 
It should include study as well as recitation, so that 
teacher and pupils may know what each pupil 
should be doing at any given hour of the day. The 
program should stand on the blackboard in sight of 
the school, or be neatly and plainly written on 
paper and posted in a conspicuous place in the 
school room. 



92 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

To make a good program requires full knowledge 
and due appreciation of all the work of the school, 
that the exercises may come in right order and 
each receive its proper share of time and attention. 
For this reason it is scarcely possible to prepare 
a general program that would work well in any 
particular school. A suit of clothes made to order 
after careful measurement usually fits better than 
one ready-made. All the conditions and surround- 
ings of a school must be well considered in prepar- 
ing its time-table. The average country school 
presents many difficulties, and so does the large 
city grammar school, where two or more teachers 
work together in the same school. 

Some principles of general application may be 
stated: 

i. Lessons which require the greatest mental 
effort should have a place early in the session, fore- 
noon or afternoon, when the pupils are fresh and 
vigorous. Such studies as arithmetic and grammar 
should come early. Such exercises as spelling, writ- 
ing, and drawing are appropriate for the later periods. 

2. Studies should be so arranged as to afford as 
much variety as possible. A change of work is 
rest. Monotony is irksome and wearing. It is not 
best for any class to have two consecutive recita- 
tions. If mental and written arithmetic both have 
a place on the program as separate and distinct 
exercises, it is better that they come in different 
parts of the day; and so of writing and drawing. 



93 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

3. In country schools the younger pupils should 
have shorter periods and recite oftener than older 
pupils. Ten minutes may be long enough for an 
exercise with the youngest classes, while thirty 
minutes may not be too long for some of the older 
ones. 

4. Writing and drawing require steadiness of 
nerve, and should not be placed immediately after 
recess or the opening of school, nor be immediately 
preceded by vigorous gymnastic exercises. 

5. After a program has been tried, it may be 
found necessary to modify it. Bearings may need 
to be slackened in one place and tightened in an- 
other, until every part runs smoothly and the whole 
machinery performs its work satisfactorily. But 
frequent changes of program are to be avoided. 
Every change should be well considered before it is 
made. 

6. The program should be followed. One exer- 
cise should not be allowed to trespass upon the time 
of another. Occasional variation from this rule 
may be allowable under some conditions, but it 
should be the exception. The rule should be for 
each class to have its own time and no more. Any 
studying or reciting at recess or after school would 
be a violation of this rule. The periods of relaxa- 
tion should be as scrupulously observed as any 
other. The evil resulting from the detention of 
pupils at recess or after school for lessons over- 
balances the good. Nothing is more obligatory 



94 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

upon the teacher than to see that every duty is per- 
formed in its time. Every minute of school time 
should be used in study, in recitation, in some 
general exercise, or in needed relaxation. The 
teacher should permit no dawdling or trifling either 
in himself or in his pupils. 

The following program was prepared by a coun- 
try teacher for use in his school, which contained 
five grades: 

8:3o to 8:50 — Music lesson for entire school. 

8:50 to 9:05 — Fifth reader, A grade. 

9:05 to 9:20 — Fourth reader, B grade. 

9:20 to 9:35 — Primer class, E grade. 

9:50 to 10:00 — Second reader, D grade. 
10:00 to 10:12 — Third reader, C grade. 
10:12 to 10:30 — Writing, entire school. 
10:30 to 10:40 — Recess. 
10:40 to 10:55 — Arithmetic, A grade. 
10:55 to 11:10 — Arithmetic, B and C grades. 
11:10 to 11:30 — Number lesson, D and B grades. 
11:30 to 11:45 — Spelling, A and B grades. 
11:45 to 12:00 — Spelling, C grade. 
12:00 to 1:00 — Noon recess. 

1 :oo to 1 :2o — Grammar, A and B grades. 

1:20 to 1:35 — Language lesson, C and D grades. 

1:35 to 2:00 — Primer and First reader, E grade. 

2:00 to 2:20 — Physiology or history, A and B grades. 

2 :20 to 2 :30 — Recess. 

2:30 to 3:00 — Primer and First reader, E grade. 

3:00 to 3:20 — Geography, A and B grades. 

3:20 to 3:40 — Geography, C grade. 

3:40 to 3:55 — Second reader, D grade. 

3:55 to 4:00 — Closing exercises. 
Explanatory Notes. — Some time is gained in arithmetic by 
allowing one class to place work on the board while another class 
is reciting. 

History and physiology alternate. 

Writing is taught from the blackboard, the pupils using foolscap 
paper. 



95 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

The proper seating of a large school is a part of 
the organization which requires skillful manage- 
ment as well as good taste. It has been said that 
in the seating of his school a teacher exhibits his 
ideal of symmetry and fitness. It is proper to give 
a school a good appearance by keeping that which 
is unsightly in the back-ground as much as possible, 
and placing in the front that which is pleasing to 
the eye, provided it can be done without wounding 
the feelings of the homely or ill-clad, or exciting 
the vanity of the good looking or well dressed. 
Perhaps better not be done at all if it cannot be 
done without revealing its purpose. 

Size, sex, grade, disposition and habits of pupils 
should each have some weight in considering the 
seating of a school. 

When other considerations do not interfere, 
pupils should sit in the order of size, beginning at 
the rear with the largest. 

It was once the custom to seat the girls on one 
side of the room and the boys on the other side. 
Then it was that the teacher sometimes inflicted 
capital punishment on a troublesome boy by making 
him sit among the girls. The custom now gen- 
erally prevails of seating without much reference to 
sex, and it is better so. 

In a city school of two grades it is a good plan 
to alternate by grades. Suppose the grades are A 
and B. In the first row of seats place A grade 
pupils in the seats with odd numbers and B grade 

96 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION, 

pupils in the seats with even numbers. Reverse 
this in the next row, and so on. This gives to 
each pupil the greatest degree of isolation. When 
one grade is called out to recite, the pupils of the 
other grade are left distributed over the room in 
alternate seats. The plan conduces to symmetry 
and good appearance as well as to good order. 

But all these plans are more or less liable to 
interruption by the habits and tendencies of the 
pupils. A pupil lacking in self-control may be 
found in a bad neighborhood, and it may become 
necessary to move him or some of his neighbors. 
And this, by the way, is a 'prerogative which the 
teacher should always maintain. A pupil's claim 
to a particular seat because he occupied it last term, 
or any other term, should not be conceded for a 
moment. Every pupil should be entirely subject 
to the direction of the teacher in this as in all other 
matters pertaining to the school. 



A school, as well as an army, needs a system of 
tactics, by which its movements may be directed 
and its work carried on. The system should be 
as simple as possible, consistent with good order and 
efficiency. All signals and movements for mere 
display or show should be discarded. The import- 
ant thing is the execution of all necessary movements 
without waste of time and without unnecessary 
confusion or noise. 



97 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Whether it is best, in assembling and dismissing, 
to march in and march out in military order is a 
question with two sides. It is more satisfactory to 
most teachers, and in some large city schools it is 
almost impossible to secure proper order in any 
other way. Schools well trained in this way are 
handled more easily and with less confusion, and 
there is greater safety in case of fire. But experi- 
ence and observation have led me to the conclusion 
that the discipline which allows larger liberty and 
yet prevents rude and boisterous conduct, is of a 
higher order and exerts a more wholesome influ- 
ence. In watching the marching and counter- 
marching of children in some large schools, I have 
been reminded of the lock-step march sometimes 
witnessed in state prisons. There is always some- 
thing repulsive about it. Nevertheless, this is to 
be said: Almost any system of tactics that secures 
discipline and order is preferable to the disorder and 
uproar that sometimes prevail in schools. 

The signals used in school to secure the move- 
ment of classes are of some importance. Some 
teachers use mainly signals addressed to the eye; 
others address the ear exclusively. The things 
of most importance are that the signals be given in 
a quiet, self-possessed manner, and that they be 
implicitly and promptly obeyed. Effort to these 
ends should never be relaxed until it succeeds. 

I have come to think that a call-bell on a teach- 
er's desk is a useless appliance. It sometimes 

98 



SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 

causes more disorder than it prevents. For moving 
classes there are no better signals than the numerals, 
one, two, three, spoken by the teacher in a soft 
voice — one, ready; two, rise; three, pass. The im- 
portant thing, I repeat, is that every signal be 
implicitly and promptly obeyed. 

Concerning all the details of school organization, 
it should be remembered that they are only means 
to an end. The main work of the school should 
never be subordinated to any ideal of system or 
mechanism. 



99 



Recitation and Study. 



' ' The teacher should study carefully the art of teaching 

well at the recitation It is there his 

mind comes specially in contact with his pupils' minds, and 
there that he lays in them, for good or for evil, the founda- 
tions of their mental habits. " — Page. 



VI. 
Recitation and Study. 

THE term recitation is here used in its broad 
sense to imply all those class exercises in school 
which are designed for instruction, for testing, for 
training, or for any or all of these combined. 

The work of the school culminates in the recita- 
tion. It is here that the teacher teaches. The 
school is a success or a failure according to the 
character of its recitations. George Howland, late 
superintendent of the Chicago schools, does not ex- 
aggerate the importance of the recitation when he 
says : 

' ' Whether we regard the prime purpose of the 
school as mental or moral instruction and discipline, 
the formation of character, or the manual skill that 
shall aid in securing a comfortable livelihood, the 
recitation is that about which centers all the activi- 
ties of school life, giving it success or stamping it 
with failure. 

' ' The personal influence of the teacher is of the 
first importance ; the power to control and direct 
invaluable ; the magnetism which shall inspire and 
incite to earnest, loving effort, a necessity to the 
accomplished, successful teacher ; but all of these 
qualifications find full scope in the recitation, and 



103 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

without this end they have little cause or reason 
to be. 

"The recitation is the controlling influence, 
determining the length and character of the lessons, 
the manner of their preparation, the conduct of the 
pupil, his hours of study, his interest in school, 
and his regard for his teacher, and gives the color, 
the value, to all his school-days, his waking and his 
sleeping hours. It is the recitation, with its direct 
influences, which makes him a trusty friend or a 
hopeless truant, a student or a scamp, and which 
will guide him along the paths of honest and suc- 
cessful industry, or into the by-ways of indolence 
and worthlessness. Here he finds the rewards of 
well-doing or condemnation of his negligence, an 
incitement to renewed endeavor or an excuse for 
feeble exertion and lax endeavor. 

" In the recitation, too, the teacher gives proof 
of her calling, or shows her unfitness for her posi- 
tion. In the recitation is concentrated the devo- 
tion, the thought, the life of the teacher, and 
the work, the purpose, the zeal, the perform- 
ance of the pupil. Here is displayed the life of the 
school, and here is decided whether the school shall 
be a means of growth and development, or a source 
of unworthy motive, of false aims and ignoble 
character. ' ' 

The character of the recitation will necessarily 
vary with the subject, the age and attainments of 
the pupils, and perhaps other conditions. The 



104 



RKCITATION AND STUDY. 

recitation of first year pupils in a primary school 
would differ in many particulars from the recitation 
of a high-school class in chemistry or geometry. 
The subject will here be considered in a general 
way, and not in its application to each and every 
grade of pupils. 

Some things worthy of mention necessarily 
precede and attend the recitation. lessons must be 
assigned. And this is a most important matter, 
demanding the teacher's most thoughtful attention. 
The want of discriminating attention to the char- 
acter and amount of work assigned constitutes one 
of the elements of weakness and failure in a good 
many schools. It is too often left to the last mo- 
ment before the dismissal of the class, and then dis- 
posed of hurriedly and without due consideration, 
resulting in many cases in a want of adaptation to 
the circumstances and needs of the class, and conse- 
quent discouragement and loss of life and interest 
on the part of the pupils. The teacher should 
make a careful study of the capacities and needs, as 
well as the prevailing habits and tendencies of his 
class, and adapt the lessons accordingly. He 
should never forget that in the tasks he assigns his 
pupils he sets up for them a standard of effort and 
attainment — an all-important matter. 

In connection with the assignment of lessons, 
there is need to anticipate the difficulties to be met 
and to prepare the pupils for meeting them. To do 
this well requires thoughtfulness and skill. The 



105 



the teacher and his work. 

wise teacher will not remove or solve the difficulties, 
but will indicate the right point of attack and incite 
the pupils to attack vigorously and persistently. 
Perhaps in nothing else is the real teaching power 
of the teacher more manifest than in his manage- 
ment of this matter. 

Pupils must be taught how to study and trained 
into right habits of study. Studying is the chief work 
of the pupil in school, and the best intellectual ac- 
complishment the school can give him is right 
habits of study. In these latter days too much reli- 
ance is placed on oral teaching to the neglect of 
study. The great aim seems to be to make every- 
thing easy and pleasant for the pupils, but the 
results in power and skill are meager. My observa- 
tion is that large numbers of pupils reach, yes, and 
leave, the high school without well formed habits 
of study. They manifest very little power to in- 
vestigate a subject, or to gain knowledge from the 
printed page by independent effort. 

Much may be done in the recitation to give di- 
rection and character to the study of the pupils ; 
but the teacher should observe closely the habits 
and tendencies of each pupil, find out his difficulties 
and hindrances, and by suggestion, admonition, en- 
couragement — by any and every means, guide and 
incite each to his best effort. No teacher can do 
more than this ; none should be content to do less. 
Personal interviews with individual pupils, in the 
spirit of friendly helpfulness, will often avail much. 

1 06 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

I have sometimes found it profitable to give my 
pupils an example of study. Seated in front of the 
class, I have often taken up the lesson in order, 
reading and repeating aloud until I had learned the 
lesson as I wished the pupils to learn it. 

Here are some rules for study worth keeping in 
mind : 

i . Study with interest. The listless conning of 
lessons as mere tasks is without much profit, and is 
doubtless often positively injurious. The interest 
of the pupil depends largely upon the teacher, but 
it should come from some source. There should be 
a sparkle in the eye and a glow of interest on the 
countenance. 

2. Study systematically. Study each lesson in 
its proper time. Begin at the right place and pro- 
ceed in order. It is well first to read the whole 
lesson over to get a general view, then return to 
the beginning, take up each topic in its order, and 
master it. 

3. Study with fixed attention. The degree of at- 
tention is the measure of success. Fitful spurts 
and dashes avail but little. The power to hold the 
mind down to the matter in hand is an attainment 
of great value. It is the roadster that leans into 
the collar without flinching that moves the load. 

4. Study to know and remember rather than to 
recite. Learning that filters through the mind like 
water through a sieve leaves small residuum. 
"Knowledge is fixed in the mind by repetition and 



107 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

reviews, by connecting its parts together by natural 
association, and by making frequent application 
of it." 

5. Study thoughtfully. Think clearly, vigor- 
ously, independently, while you study, and after- 
wards reflect on what you have studied. It is 
thought that moves the world. The great thinker 
is king among men. 

6. Study with a view to clear and forcible ex- 
pression. Study so thoroughly, think so completely, 
as to be able to state clearly and tersely. 

Every pupil should be held to a strict account. 
When a lesson has been once announced, every 
member of the class should know henceforth what 
it is. No one should be allowed to ask in 
study hours what the lesson is. Even the 
pupil who, because of absence, may not have 
heard the lessons announced, should be expected 
to learn about his lessons from the teacher 
or from some class-mate before the opening of 
school. Iyet this be known and maintained as 
' ' the law of the house, ' ' and it will not only save 
much interruption and annoyance ; it will tend to 
beget in the pupils habits of attention and prompt- 
ness. 

Every pupil should also be held to a strict ac- 
count for the mastery of the lesson. Having seen 
to it that the task assigned is not greater than may 
be accomplished by reasonable effort, the teacher 

108 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

should tolerate no shirking or dodging. L,et it be 
understood that it is not an excuse for failure, but 
the mastery of the lesson that is expected. Let it 
be understood, too, that the lesson must be pre- 
pared and recited in its own time, and not after 
school or at any other time. I am convinced, 
after many years of observation and experience, 
that more harm than good comes of ' ' keeping after 
school ' ' to make up lessons. I have practiced it 
enough to know something about it. Where the 
practice becomes chronic and shows no sign of 
abatement, it should be authoritatively prohibited. 
The time and. effort of teachers bestowed in this di- 
rection can be turned to far better account, to say 
nothing of the listlessness and disgust it fosters in 
pupils. 

The teacher should prepare himself thoroughly 
for the recitation. This is trite ; it has been often 
said, but it needs to be repeated. The prepar- 
ation needed implies more than an understanding 
of the subject-matter of the lesson, though even in 
this many come short. The teacher's knowledge 
should be fresh and his interest should be quickened. 
He should have a well-matured plan of presenting 
the lesson, and his whole mind and heart should be 
aglow with fervent interest in the pupils. His 
heart should go out toward them with intense desire 
for their growth in intelligence and goodness. His 
interest in his pupils, in the subject, and in his own 
plans and devices, should amount to an enthusiasm. 



109 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

And all this is possible to him that willeth. The 
door of attainment stands wide open ; whosoever 
will may enter. 

Absolute control of the pupils is essential to a 
good recitation. The best methods in the world 
will fail in the hands of a teacher who cannot con- 
trol his class. Good order must be maintained and 
attention must be secured and held. There is little 
use in attempting to conduct recitations in school 
until the reins of government are well in hand. 

It is also important that the teacher have clearly 
in mind the true ends of the recitation. There is 
in many schools too much aimless, slip-shod lesson- 
saying, without purpose and with small result. 
There are several clearly defined objects to be se- 
cured by class recitations which may be considered. 

i. Stimulation. The farmer prepares the 
ground before he sows the seed ; and there is some- 
thing akin to this in the work of class instruc- 
tion. The mind must be in an active, receptive 
state. A mind preoccupied or wholly indifferent is 
not ready for instruction. This phase of the work 
of preparation is mainly incidental, growing largely 
out of the general character of the recitation and 
the tone and spirit of the school. Much of it comes 
from direct contact of the teacher's mind with the 
minds of the pupils, energizing, inspiring, stimu- 
lating. An eminent and well-known Ohio teacher 
said a good many years ago, "After all, this matter 
of education consists largely in stimulation. " It is 



no 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

unmistakably the best part of teaching. The value 
of a recitation may be gauged by the measure of its 
stimulation. 

2. Examination and testing. The recitation 
seeks to test the thoroughness of the pupils' study. 
It inquires as to the faithfulness with which the pupils 
have memorized the matter contained in the lesson, 
but it does not stop here. It reaches to the under- 
standing. "Do you understand?" "What do 
you understand ? " " How do you understand ? ' ' 
"Give an example," "Put it in other words," 
" Make your meaning clear," are some of the ways 
in which the skillful class manipulator probes the 
understanding of his pupils. 

The recitation is also a test of power. Mental 
power is of more value than knowledge, and the 
pupil should have frequent opportunity of ex- 
hibiting and exercising his growing power — power 
to observe, power to grasp thought, power to 
analyze and reason, power of expression. Various 
school exercises, such as the analysis of sentences, 
translations, composition, and the solution of prob- 
lems, afford ample means of exercising and testing 
mental power. Similarly, recitations may be made 
tests of skill in such arts as reading, writing, draw- 
ing, computation, and the like. 

3. Instruction. This is prominent in primary 
teaching, but it has also a place in more advanced 
teaching. The method depends upon the subject 
to be taught and other conditions. Sometimes the 



in 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Socratic method may be used almost exclusively; at 
other times direct dogmatic statement may be best. 
The important thing is the self-activity of the 
learning mind. 

There seem to be three uses of instruction in the 
ordinary class recitation, (a) The wrong impres- 
sions and misconceptions of pupils must needs be 
corrected. This is usually best done by skillful 
questioning and cross-examination, leading the 
pupil to discover and correct his own errors. The 
usual rule is to tell the pupil nothing directly which 
he can be led to discover for himself — a rule cor- 
rect in principle but often overstrained and misap- 
plied. (£) Additions may be made to the pupils' 
stock of knowledge of the subject in hand. The 
best way of doing this will be determined by the 
nature of the subject, the attainments and habits 
of the pupils, and other conditions. Sometimes it 
may be sufficient to point out the sources of infor- 
mation ; at other times it may be best to give the 
information directly. The teacher's chief concern 
should be to arouse interest and stimulate effort as 
much as possible, (c) New subjects must be de- 
developed. This part of the work of instruction 
requires special skill. It should be done in such way 
as not to relieve the pupil from the necessity of 
effort, but rather to incite him to his best effort. 
It should not remove the difficulties, but indicate 
the point of attack and incite the pupils to attack 
vigorously and persistently. The teacher's work 



112 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

in developing new subjects may be described as a 
going before and blazing the way over which the 
pupils are to construct for themselves an open 
highway. 

4. Training. Some teachers who excel as in- 
structors are poor drill-masters. They are skilled 
in the art of putting things, but do not appreciate 
the value of practice, which makes perfect. Of 
course it is neither practicable nor desirable to make 
a complete separation between instruction and train- 
ing in class exercises. They are mutually comple- 
mentary. Bach will often disclose a necessity for 
the other. But there is a time and place for each. 
The great stress laid upon the skillful presentation 
of subjects in modern teaching has tended to the 
disparagement and neglect of drill. We are apt to 
forget that one presentation is not sufficient to 
make even the adult mind master of any important 
truth, and that once doing is not sufficient to make 
one an adept in the practice of any art. We must 
learn again and again in order to know thoroughly, 
and we must do again and again that which we 
would do skillfully. There is true wisdom for all 
time in the old Jesuit maxim, ' ' Repetitio mater 
sludiorum." 

5. Expression. This is at the same time a 
means and an end. It is the chief means of attain- 
ing the other ends of the recitation, and is itself a 
most important end. Every well conducted recita- 
tion is a training as well as a testing of the pupils' 



113 



THE) TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

power of expression. A man is well educated who 
has the power of forming clear ideas and of giving 
them accurate and elegant expression. The teach- 
er's work in teaching consists largely in leading pu- 
pils to see and to tell what they see — in training 
them to think and to express thought. And these 
two are very closely related. Max Muller says 
language and reason are only two names or two 
aspects of one and the same thing. ' ' No reason 
without language, no language without reason." 
I would say, rather, they sustain to each other the 
relation of body and spirit. language is embodied 
thought, and in our present state we know as little 
about thought without language as we know about 
soul without body. At all events, thought and 
language are interdependent. Clear thinking 
begets clearness and elegance of speech, and clear 
and forcible language in turn tend to clearness and 
completeness of thought. Hence, expression is a 
matter of paramount importance in the recitation. 

Good utterance, good articulation, in the reci- 
tation, is worth all the effort it may cost to secure 
it. It is good for its own sake, and it is good in its 
tendency. Clear enunciation and clear thought go 
together, as do slovenly utterance and muddiness 
of thought. 

All important principles, definitions and rules 
which are worth learning at all should be memo- 
rized verbatim, and repeated until they become as 
familiar as the multiplication table. This has more 



ii4 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

than a double value. Besides the knowledge and 
mental discipline gained, it has full value in the 
familiarity secured with the best forms of expres- 
sion. The memorizing of good English for pur- 
poses of language culture is not generally esteemed 
as it deserves. 

Errors of speech in the recitation should be 
assiduously corrected without diverting attention 
unduly from the subject in hand. It is usually 
sufficient, when an error is made, for the teacher to 
speak the correct form, it being understood that the 
pupil must at once make the correction and proceed 
without further interruption. 

It should be the teacher's constant aim to keep 
his pupils up to their best endeavor in acquiring ac- 
curacy and facility in the use of language. He can 
have no truer measure of their real progress. The 
first need is a high ideal on the part of the teacher. 
Let him reflect much on the possibilities in this di- 
rection, and let the clear and forcible expression of 
thought be ever before his mind as a fundamental 
object of the recitation. 

Some of the more common methods of recitation 
deserve to be noticed. Oral lessons are specially 
adapted to younger pupils and partake more or less 
of the nature of conversation, tending in varying 
degree to secure the ends of the recitation already 
named. At the beginning of the child's school life 
the teacher is at the maximum, but soon becomes a 



ii5 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

diminishing quantity. As the child advances the 
teacher recedes. Probably no school exercises 
require greater judgment and skill than the oral les- 
sons in the first years of school life. The best oral 
lessons are those that may soonest be dispensed with 
because of the ability they give the pupil to help 
himself. 

Written recitations have a place and a value as 
soon as pupils can write readily from dictation. 
Spelling and language exercises may be written at 
an early stage, and as soon as lessons in geography, 
arithmetic, etc., are learned from books, there is 
special advantage in occasional written recitations. 
They constitute a more thorough test of pupils' 
knowledge than oral recitations. The questions 
are likely to be prepared with more care, and each 
pupil must put himself on record for every question 
and problem given. In oral recitation, a glib 
talker may pass for more than he is worth, but not 
so when he comes to write what he knows in 
plain characters. Imperfect or partial answers will 
then appear in their true character. Occasional 
written recitations, without occupying more than 
the usual time, may often prove a revelation to 
both teacher and pupils. It would not be wise, 
however, to use the written method exclusively, or 
to make it the main dependence. 

For pupils somewhat advanced the method by 
topics has special advantage. It requires more 
comprehension and thorough preparation, and more 

116 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

fully cultivates and tests the power of expression 
than any other method. Properly conducted, it 
compels the pupil to make careful analysis of the 
subject and to classify and arrange his thoughts in 
an orderly way, so as to tell what he knows in a 
smooth, connected statement. Study and recitation 
thus become what they ought to be, a real training 
in thought and expression. It is true that the 
topic method in the hands of a weak teacher may 
degenerate into mere babble about unimportant and 
unrelated details ; but as much may be said of any 
method. The letter killeth, the spirit quickeneth. 
No method is good enough to dispense with the 
quickening and life-giving power of the living 
teacher. 

Some use of the topic method may be profitably 
made in grades lower than those to which it is 
usually applied. The little people in the primary 
geography class, for example, may be encouraged 
to tell in several successive sentences what they 
have learned about a given country, city, lake or 
river, and thus gradually acquire the power to 
stand on their feet and express themselves. 

The catechetical method has always been, and 
is likely to remain, the teacher's main reliance in 
the recitation. For stimulating and directing the 
pupil's mind, as well as revealing to him his own 
weakness and the insufficiency of his preparation, 
there is nothing like searching questioning. To be 
a good teacher, one must be master of the art of 



117 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

questioning. A good question is thought-provoking, 
and throws the pupil as much as possible upon his 
own resources. The teacher's questions should 
generally follow in logical order and lead to a sys- 
tematic unfolding of the subject. They should 
always be couched in clear and unmistakable terms, 
and always adapted to the comprehension of the 
pupils. Questions need not always be hard to 
answer. On the other hand, many questions 
should be asked which the pupils can readily answer. 
This will add to the interest and life of the reci- 
tation, and give the pupils courage. But not 
many recitations should pass without some ques- 
tions calculated to search, and probe, and test. 
There should be tests of memory, of imagination, 
of invention, of thought. 

Some of the best high-school recitations I have 
ever heard have been those in which the pupils 
questioned each other. This was the usual 
method of one of the best high-school teachers I 
ever knew. The teacher presided over the recita- 
tion, the pupils did the work — and they did it 
thoroughly. They delved into every nook and 
corner of the subject, and brought out things new 
and old. It led to a more masterly preparation of 
lessons, and often to such an exhibition of mental 
gymnastics as I have rarely witnessed elsewhere. 
But it is too sharp and effective an instrument to be 
wielded by any but skillful hands. 

Pupils may answer (i) simultaneously. For 

118 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

rapid review, and for drill on tables, dates in his- 
tory, and all such things as need to be fixed in the 
memory by frequent repetition, the simultaneous 
method is appropriate. But it will not serve the 
more important ends of the recitation. It is an in- 
sufficient test. It encourages shirking. No teacher 
has sufficient power and skill to teach a large class 
well in bulk. There is always need to individualize. 

(2.) Pupils may be called upon to recite con- 
secutively. This is convenient and insures regular 
participation in the recitation by every member 
of the class ; but in a large class there would be 
temptation to inattention, and cases have been 
known of pupils preparing only the part of the 
lesson likely to fall to them in regular course. 

(3.) The promiscuous method of calling upon 
pupils to recite should be the teacher's main reli- 
ance. Under the skillful use of this method no 
pupil will consider himself exempt at any time, as 
every question will be directed to every member of 
the class. If any show signs of inattention, the 
teacher will naturally pay his respects to such 
more frequently, until they conclude to mend their 
ways. It will require some care to give to each his 
portion in due season. Those that always recite 
well and those that always recite badly are the two 
extremes to be watched. 

A few general suggestions concerning class 
management and the conduct of recitations will 
close this chapter. 



119 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

i. Secure and hold the attention of every 
member of the class throughout the entire recita- 
tion. The recitation should never begin without 
attention, nor should it proceed in any part while 
any pupils are inattentive. The degree of atten- 
tion secured is the measure of the teacher's success. 
An experienced and skillful inspector of schools 
and school work, on entering a school, will imme- 
diately and almost unconsciously observe the char- 
acter of attention in the class and in the school. It 
cannot be held permanently by merely commanding 
it. It comes through healthy interest, largely the 
result of the teacher's personality and the teacher's 
methods. Some devices are of temporary advan- 
tage, such as asking the question before designating 
the pupil who is to recite ; but the teacher must get 
the reins well in hand, there must be a right 
spirit in the school, and the pupils must be 
deeply interested in their work. If these things 
be in the school and abound, attention will not be 
lacking. 

2. Do not do the pupil's work for him. The 
minimum of talking and explanation on the part of 
the teacher and the maximum of active exertion 
on the part of the pupils, is the ideal of excellence 
in the recitation. The best teacher soonest makes 
himself useless to his pupils. The teacher should 
study and practice economy of speech ; his words 
should be few and well chosen. To impart his own 
knowledge is not the true work of the teacher, but 



1 20 



RECITATION AND STUDY. 

rather to stimulate and direct his pupils in their 
efforts to obtain knowledge for themselves. 

3. Have a definite plan for every recitation and 
follow it. Many a recitation fails for want of pur- 
pose and plan. With an end in mind to be reached, 
drive hard to reach it. High school and college 
students have been known to side-track the recita- 
tion by skillfully raising questions and getting the 
teacher started on some favorite theme nearly or 
remotely related to the subject in hand, and thus 
the time passes and the students escape the humili- 
ating exposure of their unfaithfulness in study. 
The teacher should stick to the text and hold his 
pupils to it. 

4. Be elementary and simple. Dr. Joseph 
Alden bears testimony to the value of simplicity 
in teaching in these words : ' ' In an experience of 
twenty -five years as a college teacher, I have dis- 
covered that I have been successful according as I 
have been elementary and simple in my teaching. ' ' 
The teacher should not speak to his pupils in an un- 
known tongue. Simple words and short sentences 
should be his rule. 

5. Maintain a cheerful and patient spirit. Pet- 
ulance is one of the besetting sins of teachers. It 
is a great misfortune, both to himself and to his 
pupils, for a teacher to fall under the domination of 
an irritable, fault-finding temper. The teacher 
must learn to bear with stupidity and waywardness; 
he will find much of both. Dr. Channing says 



121 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

truly that the boy or girl compelled for six hours a 
day to see the countenance and hear the voice 
of a fretful, unkind, hard or passionate teacher, is 
in a school of vice. Be patient, be cheerful. 

6. Keep in sympathy with your pupils. I,earn 
to " put yourself in his place." Cherish a real in- 
terest in the welfare and progress of each and every 
pupil. Keep growing yourself and watch for 
growth in your pupils. 

7. Do not accept as known and understood 
what the pupil is unable to state clearly. What 
you give your pupils in the way of instruction, re- 
quire them to give back to you. Only a weak 
teacher will accept the statement, " I know it, but 
I cannot tell it." 

8. Review frequently. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull 
says in his book entitled Teaching and Teachers, 
' ' From one-quarter to one-half of the entire time 
occupied by a teacher in the teaching process could 
be employed to advantage in one form or another of 
review." " Repetition is the mother of studies." 

9. Censure sparingly. Reproof is ten-fold 
more effective when spoken by lips more wont to 
speak words of praise. 

10. Praise judiciously. Praise is a powerful 
stimulus when bestowed with discrimination ; but 
words of praise should not be spoken when unde- 
served. 



122 



School Government. 



' * Nothing is so easily wrecked as the soul. As mechan- 
isms go up toward complexity, delicacy increases. The 
fragile vase is ruined by a single tap. A chance blow de- 
stroys the statue. A bit of sand ruins the delicate mechan- 
ism. But the soul is even more sensitive to injury. It is 
marred by a word or a look. Men are responsible for the 
ruin they work unthinkingly." — Newell Dwight Hillis. 



VII. 

School Government. 

MY present undertaking is to record in the most 
direct and simple language, for all who may 
choose to read, something of what I have observed 
and thought, in the course of a varied experience of 
more than forty years, on what seems to me the 
most difficult and important part of the teacher's 
work, the government of the school. I shall make 
no effort at profundity, nor yet at fine writing. 
Without fear of the charge of egotism before my 
eyes, I shall draw freely from my own experience 
when that seems to serve the purpose best, not 
omitting to tell of mistakes and failures, as well as 
of well directed and successful effort. 

I have often witnessed the painful striving of 
young teachers in an unequal contest with a school 
of fifty or more young people brimful of animal life 
and mischief. I have watched with intense inter- 
est and sympathy the first efforts of young girls 
fresh from the high school, going to their new work 
full of hope and high expectation, and shedding 
bitter tears of disappointment by the end of the first 
or second week. I have sometimes been led to say 
that these novices are not fairly ready to begin 
until they have had several good cries. 



125 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

It is for such mainly that I write, in the hope of 
helping some of them to get their eyes open to see 
something of the character and scope of the work — 
something of the possibilities of power and skill for 
themselves, and of good for their pupils. 

My own apprenticeship was spent in country 
schools, unattended by any special difficulty or any 
unusual experiences of any kind. My pupils were 
for the most part tractable and docile, and all of 
them in large measure proof against injury from my 
blind blundering efforts ; else my life would now be 
miserable from the recollection of the harm done. 
A courage bred of ignorance, as it now seems, in some 
measure supplied the lack of experience and skill. 

But when I first came to take charge of a large 
city school, the case was very different. It was a 
much stronger and wilder team I then had to man- 
age. I had thought the government of a school 
comparatively easy, but the illusion was soon dis- 
pelled. My first city school was a large grammar 
school of perhaps a hundred and twenty pupils, all 
seated in one large room to which were attached 
recitation rooms where my two assistants taught 
their classes. It was a very trying ordeal for a 
young schoolmaster, and the more so because in the 
same building was a demoralized high school, from 
which the contagion of disorder and insubordination 
extended to the other departments. 

My resources were soon exhausted. I had been 
opposed, both in theory and practice, to the use of 

126 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

the rod in schools, and had publicly maintained that 
view, but I underwent a speedy conversion. The 
rod was brought in and vigorously used, and with 
good effect. Since that time my theory has been 
and still is that it is better to control a school with 
the rod than that it should be uncontrolled. This 
is no warrant for the injudicious or unnecessary use 
of the rod when higher and better means of control 
may be available and effective. But of this more 
may be said later. 

Broadly viewed, the right government of the 
school is a difficult and laborious part of the teach- 
er's work, requiring a large amount of energy, 
courage, judgment, tact, and skill. The govern- 
ment of a large city school requires higher talent 
and greater executive ability than the command of 
a regiment of soldiers. And the importance of good 
government in a school is more than commensurate 
with its difficulty. It is vital and essential. The 
success of the school in general depends upon it, and 
its influence in the formation of individual character 
is very great. It is doubtless true that the kind 
and measure of control which the teacher exercises 
is a gerater factor in the formation of individual 
character than all his direct instruction. 

It then behooves every one who is called to teach 
to inform himself thoroughly as to the possibilities 
for good which lie in the government of the school, 
its underlying principles, and its best means and 
methods. It also behooves him to exercise full 



127 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

diligence in the use of every available means for the 
attainment of power and skill in the art of govern- 
ment. A resolute purpose and a definite aim at the 
outset are very essential. My advice to young 
teachers in starting has always been, Control your 
school by the best agencies at your command, but 
by any and all means make sure of control. Make 
no provision for any other outcome ; entertain no 
misgivings. 

I propose now to consider more at length and in 
several particulars the ends to be sought. 

i. Good Order. This may not be an ultimate 
end ; it may be considered a means to a higher end ; 
still it is an end of no mean importance. 

What constitutes good order in school is a ques- 
tion involving much more than appears at a superfi- 
cial view. That is not always best which appears 
best. The highest degree of quiet is not necessarily 
the best order, though a reasonable measure of quiet 
should prevail. Indeed it is not easy to define or to 
state specifically what constitutes good order. It is 
in some measure a relative term. What may be 
good order in one school or with one teacher might 
not be so in another school or with another teacher. 
And sometimes the order in a school cannot be pro- 
nounced good until the means and methods by which 
it is secured are known. Of two schools, one may 
be very quiet, every movement may be character- 
ized by promptness and precision, and all the pupils 
may be attentive to their work ; the other may not 



128 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

be so quiet, there may be less of exactness and more 
of freedom in movement, and the eyes of the pupils 
may not be quite so closely confined to their books. 
Yet, if I should observe in the first that the teacher 
stood like a sentinel on guard, constantly on the 
alert to discover the slightest infractions of order, 
scarcely venturing to turn his back to the school, 
and in the other I should observe that the teacher 
gave himself to the work of instruction, depending 
in large measure upon the pupils to keep themselves 
in order, and the pupils were doing their work with- 
out apparent constraint, I would not hesitate to 
pronounce in favor of the latter ; the order is better. 
I was a close and interested observer, for several 
years, of a lady's management of a certain high 
school. The pupils, numbering more than a hun- 
dred, were seated in one large assembly room with 
recitation rooms attached. Some of my first visits 

after Mrs. S took charge of the school gave me 

an unfavorable impression. The school seemed 
noisy and disorderly. After several visits, I ven- 
tured to suggest very gently that the school seemed 
rather noisy. The reply was, ' ' Wait a little ; I 
hope to bring it out all right." The first sign of 
improvement observed was a growing interest 
among the pupils in their work. It soon became 
apparent that the teacher was unusually strong, 
both morally and intellectually, and that she was 
looking ahead. She patiently endured some things 
for the time which most teachers would have 



129 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

attacked directly and vigorously, and probably not 
without some friction and ill will. She secured the 
respect of the pupils and by degrees became com- 
plete master of the situation ; but the school never 
became noted for its quiet or nice order. It was a 
working school rather than a quiet school. The 
teacher's motto was, " Keep the pupils busy. Give 
them plenty of work to do and see that they do it 
well." Nothing was done for show. Everything 
was valued for its bearing on character and on the 
legitimate work of the school. The pupils had 
large liberty. They were permitted to cross the 
room in an orderly way at any time, without asking 
leave, to consult the dictionary or encyclopedia. 
No ' ' whispering reports ' ' were taken, yet pupils 
who wasted time or made disturbance by whisper- 
ing were sharply dealt with until the habit was cor- 
rected. There was no marching and countermarch- 
ing — no military tactics. All the pupils' move- 
ments were natural and free, without rudeness or 
boisterousness. There was no sitting with folded 
arms and no tip-toeing with arms behind the back. 
The pupils were subject to the will of the teacher, a 
good spirit prevailed, and effective work filled the 
hours. 

Who shall say that the order in this school was 
not good ? It was not such as we sometimes hear 
called " fine," or "beautiful," but good it certainly 
was. It was such as only a teacher of unusual 
power can secure and maintain. For a weak or a 



130 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

mediocre teacher to undertake to manage so large a 
school in such a way would prove a disastrous fail- 
ure ; but it is an ideal toward which all may strive. 
Not many teachers can give to their pupils such 
large liberty and yet hold the school well in hand. 
To be able to train young people into the right use 
of such liberty is a high attainment, a noble art. 

The teacher must be master. The school must 
be controlled ; order must be maintained. The 
character of the forces at the teacher's command for 
the attainment of this end determines better than 
anything else his real worth as a teacher. 

Perhaps I should add that a school is in good 
order when every pupil is in his own place and in 
good spirit attending to his own business in such 
way as not to disturb or hinder any other pupil. 

2. To restrain and correct whatever is wrong in 
the conduct and habits of pupils. The ordinary 
school is not exactly a reformatory ; yet the teacher 
as well as the parent must be vigilant in checking 
and overcoming the tendencies of children to evil. 
In nearly every school are some pupils of depraved 
tendencies ; and unless there are strong counter- 
acting and correcting influences, they will contami- 
nate and pervert others. Especially is this true of 
large schools in cities and towns. Without a 
strong, watchful teacher, such schools are liable to 
become schools of vice. Under almost any condi- 
tions, the demoralizing tendency of a large school, 
when not well controlled, is great. It is often 



131 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

surprising with what readiness children from good 
homes fall into the practices of evil companions, in 
schools under weak or lax government. Rudeness, 
falsehood, profanity, and vileness are very conta- 
gious. 

On the other hand, a strong teacher, with high 
moral character and purpose, is a great power for 
good. In such case it is literally true that one can 
chase a thousand. 

It is not enough that the teacher be vigilant 
and skillful in detecting and punishing evil-doers, 
though this is well as far as it goes. He must 
build up the good as well as destroy the evil. The 
great desideratum is a health-giving and invigora- 
ting moral atmosphere, and this, only an upright, 
pure and strong teacher can beget. What great in- 
centives to purify himself and be strong are ever 
before the teacher whose eyes are open to see his 
work ! This is one of the blessed compensations of 
the business of teaching. With a discovery of its 
possibilities there is apt to come an intense desire to 
realize one's ideal in his own life and character, and 
this for the sake of his pupils rather than himself. 

3. To beget the habit and spirit of obedience. 

The great lesson of life is the lesson of obedience. 

Schiller tells us that the first great law is to obey, 

and 

" Obedience is the Christian's crown." 

One of the sacred writers has said, "To obey 
is better than sacrifice." The teachers of the land 



132 



SCHOOX, GOVERNMENT. 

can do no greater service to the State than to train 
their pupils to obedience. Moral lessons and les- 
sons in civics are well enough ; but they have their 
chief value as auxiliaries in begetting the spirit of 
obedience. Without the spirit and habit of obedi- 
ence, no amount of moral and civic instruction or of 
formal acts of devotion will avail much. I would 
rather have my child in a school where he is trained 
to implicit obedience, than in one where long 
Scripture lessons are read and long prayers are said, 
with slackness in the matter of obedience. Scrip- 
ture lessons and prayers are good in their place, 
and they may properly have a place in school, but 
the great thing is training in right life and conduct. 

I doubt whether even teachers themselves re- 
alize how great a power for good lies in the training 
of the public schools in the direction of obedience. 
And here I wish to testify to the great gain that 
has been made in recent years. The discipline of 
the schools is far better than it was at a time within 
the recollection of many now living. Teachers 
have greater power and higher skill in governing. 
There is far less of antagonism and harsh discipline, 
and far more of gentleness and refinement. The 
pupils are more tractable and obedient. The re- 
straining and uplifting influence of the schools is 
very great. Many a young anarchist is taught les- 
sons in the schools that will last him for a lifetime. 

If it be said that law-breaking, recklessness and 
crime abound, let it be remembered that many pow- 



133 



THE TKACH^R AND HIS WORK. 

erful agencies for evil are at work, and were it not 
for the counteracting influence of the schools and 
churches, the outlook would be gloomy indeed. 
Our land seems to be more than ever the dumping- 
ground for the refuse of the Old World's population, 
and these herd in our great commercial centers, 
making each a danger center. Out of the children 
of this mixed multitude the schools must make 
American citizens ; and never before in the world's 
history were schools so well fitted for so great a 
work as are the American free schools of to-day. 
L,et teachers be encouraged to renewed zeal and 
higher endeavor. 

4. To beget a sense of individual responsibility. 
Daniel Webster was once asked what he considered 
the greatest thought that had ever occupied his 
mind. He replied, "The thought of my own indi- 
vidual accountability. ' ' And it is a thought that 
tends to impress every right-minded person most 
profoundly. It is a serious thing to live the life 
of a man or a woman in the world, knowing that 
every one of us must render a strict account, — 
that even ' ' every idle word that men shall speak 
they shall give account thereof." There is not 
much strength or stability of character without a 
considerable measure of this sense of oughtness ; 
and its strong development in anyone is almost a 
guarantee of safety in the voyage of life. Its de- 
velopment in pupils is a matter of cultivation and 
growth. Teachers are apt to feel that little can be 



r 34 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

done in this direction, and so put forth little effort. 
Perhaps it is caught rather than taught. Certain it 
is that the teacher who acts from a deep sense of 
his own accountability, and whose first question is 
always, What is the right thing to do ? will steadily 
gain ground. In all dealings with pupils in mat- 
ters of conduct, it is well to appeal to their sense of 
duty, even though it be known to be weak. There 
is no better or surer way of quickening this sense. 
Did you do right ? Is your record clean ? Is your 
conscience clear ? are questions which, coming from 
the lips of a faithful and earnest teacher, can scarcely 
fail of an effect. The discovery of the want of 
moral sense in pupils should stimulate rather than 
discourage effort. 

Of course, the years before school life begins is 
the important period. The moral sense and moral 
standards of children are largely the product of the 
influences which surround them during this early 
period. In this there is strong reason for public 
kindergartens in the cities, for the large class of 
children whose infant lives are spent in an atmos- 
phere of vice and crime, and whose early moral 
training would be otherwise entirely neglected. It 
would be true economy as well as true philanthropy 
to provide free kindergartens for these children, 
with compulsory attendance from the age of three 
or four to six or seven. 

But I am more and more impressed with the 
weight of responsibility which comes upon our 



135 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

public school teachers for this same class of chil- 
dren. For many of them the public school is almost 
their only opportunity ; and I am sure that teachers 
of warm heart and earnest purpose can do much for 
them. 

5. To beget self-control. There is probably no 
better test of the government of a school. That 
school is best governed that has in it most of self- 
government. The school that is kept under by the 
vigilant eye and the strong hand of the teacher, and 
is ready to break into disorder whenever the teach- 
er's back is turned, is not well governed, no matter 
how quiet and orderly it may be under the teacher's 
eye. 

It should be the aim of the teacher to beget such 
a spirit in his school that he can at any moment 
without warning leave the room, in the full confi- 
dence that for a reasonable time good order will be 
maintained and the work of the school go on with- 
out his presence. This is not an unattainable ideal, 
in proof of which I might cite numerous examples. 
A large grammar school in southern Ohio has been 
known to run in good order for an entire half day, 
without the teacher or a substitute. Work being 
assigned for the entire session, the pupils did it and 
retired in good order at the proper time. I knew a 
school in Cleveland, of about third year or third 
reader grade, that ran in perfect order for a full 
week, in the care of a little girl who was a member 
of the school. These may be considered excep- 

136 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

tional cases, but they point out the direction in 
which the teacher's effort should be bent. 

The immediate results of judicious effort in 
this direction are most gratifying to both teacher 
and pupils. The government becomes easy for 
the teacher and pleasing to the pupils. But the 
more remote and more important results are seen 
in the growing power of self-control in the pupils, 
and these are valuable beyond estimate. The chief 
business of each individual life in this world is to 
get self-mastery. The master of self is master of 
all. The highest praise is ' ' not to the strong man 
'who taketh a city,' but to the stronger man who 
'ruleth his own spirit. ' This stronger man is he 
who by discipline, exercises a constant control over 
his thoughts, his speech and his acts. Nine-tenths 
of the vicious desires that degrade society, and 
which, when indulged, swell into the crimes 
that disgrace it, would sink into significance before 
the advance of valiant self-discipline, self-respect, 
and self-control. By the watchful exercise of these 
virtues, purity of mind and heart becomes habitual, 
and the character is built up in chastity, virtue, 
and temperance." 

Such results are worth the teacher's highest 
thought and best effort, and the encouraging thing 
is that they are in large measure attainable. Let 
the teacher seek first for himself personal worth 
and high ideals, then press steadily onward. 

6. To keep pupils up to their best. This is an 



137 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

ideal which has grown apace in my mind as the 
years go by. It ought to be the ideal of every 
teacher, toward the realization of which he should 
ever strive intensely. Every pupil at his best — 
what a grand attainment ! It would preclude all 
over-strain as well as all inattention and idling. It 
would imply riveted attention, intense application, 
to the work in hand — thoroughness of investiga- 
tion, persistence to the point of complete compre- 
hension, and clear and smooth expression. It 
would also imply the best effort of each in conduct 
— best effort at resistance of evil, best exercise of 
right thought and feeling, full purpose and volition 
in the direction of the right and good, and prompt 
and efficient action. 

Does it not appear that there are grand possibili- 
ties in the government of the school, to him that 
has been born into the spirit of the true teacher ? 

We are now to consider some limitations in the 
government of the school. The teacher is not an 
absolute monarch. His power is limited and condi- 
tioned by the statute and the courts, by the ' ' rules 
and regulations" of the board of education, and 
by parental prerogatives. And this is well ; for 
there is always a tendency in human nature to the 
abuse of power. The charge of mismanagement 
and abuse lies against every human agency for the 
exercise of control among men. The State, the 
family, and the school must all plead guilty. All 

138 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

have contributed to the sum of human misery by 
the unwise and unskillful exercise of authority. 
Undoubtedly, family government is most at fault, 
and its evil consequences are most widely spread 
and most baneful. There may be some comfort to 
teachers in the reflection that they are not the 
greatest sinners. 

It behooves the teacher to know well the limits 
and bounds of his prerogative. In the first place, 
he should familiarize himself with all the require- 
ments of the statutes which have any bearing upon 
him or his work. In this, most teachers are very 
negligent. Probably not one teacher in ten has 
ever read the school law of the State in which he 
lives and labors. Everyone should have a copy of 
the law, and should at least be sufficiently familiar 
with it to refer to it readily on any question which 
may arise in the discharge of his duties. He should 
also be a doer of the law, showing himself in all 
things law-abiding ; for how shall one train his 
pupils to obedience who is himself disobedient ? 

The teacher is subordinate in authority to the 
board of education that employs him. The authori- 
tative control and direction of the school is vested 
by the statute in the board of education, and the 
teacher derives his authority partly from the board 
and partly from the unwritten law of custom and 
common sense. It sometimes seems strange that 
there is in the statute so little direct recognition of 
the teacher's authority. His right to be obeyed 



139 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

and to enforce obedience is everywhere assumed 
rather than expressly declared. As to the distri- 
bution of powers between the board and the teacher, 
there is considerable diversity of practice. I have 
known some country schools in which the teacher 
was almost supreme dictator, making and enforcing 
his own rules and regulations, even to the extent of 
adopting text-books, the board doing little besides 
putting the teacher in charge and signing the pa- 
pers necessary to draw his pay at the end of the 
term. On the other hand, I have known city 
boards that went to the opposite extreme of meddle- 
some interference with the internal management 
and instruction of the school. 

It is the part of wisdom for boards of education 
to secure competent and faithful teachers and give 
them liberty. Many a worthy and efficient teacher 
has left the work in disgust because of the med- 
dlesome interference of school directors. Superin- 
tendents of city schools are most frequently the vic- 
tims of this kind of interference. None but superin- 
tendents themselves know how hard a thing it 
sometimes is for one in such a position to do his 
whole duty toward teachers and pupils, and at the 
same time " get along" with a meddlesome board, 
or even with one officious member. I am free to 
say that this, more than anything else, led me to 
seek relief from the position of superintendent, 
when I would otherwise have been glad to con- 
tinue the work. The outside world will never 



140 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

know how many school superintendents have quietly 
retired, or have been retired, because of too much 
manhood to submit to the dictation of ignorance 
and arrogance ; nor will it ever be known how 
many others meekly submit for the sake of holding 
their positions in peace. All honor to such super- 
intendents as Drs. K. K. White, Andrew J. Rickoff, 
B. A. Hinsdale, and Robert W. Stevenson, for their 
examples of courage and manly independence. 

Of course, there is a legitimate and reasonable 
exercise of the authority conferred on boards of ed- 
ucation by the statute, to which superintendents and 
teachers should render all due respect and obedience. 

limitations of school authority having virtually 
the force of law are set forth in various court de- 
cisions which have been rendered from time to time. 
Many of these are discussed at some length in a se- 
ries of articles which appeared in the Ohio Educa- 
tional Monthly some time ago. A brief summary 
of the more important points is here presented: 

i . Reasonable and necessary rules adopted by 
the teacher are valid, even though not formally ap- 
proved or adopted by the board, and they are bind- 
ing upon pupils equally with the rules of the board. 

2. Rules requiring prompt and regular attend- 
ance are deemed reasonable and necessary to the 
highest welfare of the school, and may be enforced 
by reasonable measures ; but locking tardy children 
out on a cold winter morning has been pronounced 
unreasonable. 



141 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

3. It has been held in Ohio that the board of 
education has full authority to require or forbid re- 
ligious exercises in the school ; but in some other 
States the right of the board to require any form of 
religious exercise has been challenged. It is the 
opinion of the writer that, whatever may be the 
constitutional or legal right in the case, it is not or- 
dinarily the wisest policy for the board either to re- 
quire or to forbid religious exercises. 

4. In the absence of statutory prohibition, the 
courts uniformly sustain the teacher in the inflic- 
tion of corporal punishment, but hold him crimin- 
ally liable for excessive punishment through anger 
or malice, and, in some cases, even through error of 
judgment. 

5. The power of suspension and expulsion is 
carefully guarded by statute in Ohio. The teach- 
er's power is limited to temporary suspension, for 
such time only as may be necessary to convene the 
board of education. A pupil can be expelled only 
by a two-thirds vote of the board, after the parent 
or guardian has had the opportunity of being heard. 
Neither suspension nor expulsion can extend beyond 
the school term in which it occurs. 

6. The parent and the teacher have concurrent 
authority over the pupil on the way to and from 
school, the teacher's authority extending more par- 
ticularly to all matters affecting the well-being of the 
school . After the pupil reaches his home , the parent ' s 
authority is fully resumed and the teacher's ceases. 



142 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

7. The question of the parent's right to select 
the studies to be pursued by his child has given rise 
to diverse decisions, but the weight of the more re- 
cent authority denies to the parent the right to 
make such selection. All the courts concede the 
right of the board of education to prescribe a course 
of study for the schools under its management ; but 
the parent's claim to some liberty of choice among 
the prescribed studies is not wholly unreasonable, 
especially when it works no interference with other 
rights or interests. There is room here for the 
play of common sense and good spirit on the part of 
the teacher. While he should not weakly and 
meekly yield to the demands of ignorant and selfish 
arrogance, he should ever welcome the advice and 
assistance of parents in doing what is best for each 
pupil. It may often be looked upon as a relief to 
have parents thus share the teacher's responsibility. 
Besides, there are in almost every community intel- 
ligent parents who have plans for the higher edu- 
cation of their children. It seems only fair that 
they should be able to shape their elementary train- 
ing with some reference to these plans, whenever it 
can be done without detriment to other interests. 

In view of all these limitations and conditions of 
school authority, and in the light of observation 
and experience, the following statements may be 
accepted as guiding principles : 

1 . In all matters pertaining to the direct govern- 
ment of the pupils the supreme authority of the teacher 



143 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

should be recognized. It is the province of the 
teacher to seat his pupils ; to maintain order; to di- 
rect the movements of the pupils in the school 
room, and when entering and leaving it ; to direct 
the pupils in study ; to conduct recitations and give 
such oral instruction in the prescribed branches as 
he may deem best ; to enforce obedience to the 
written and unwritten rules of good behavior ; and 
to inflict such reasonable punishments as may be 
necessary to correct pupils' faults and secure obedi- 
ence. And in the exercise of his prerogative in all 
these and other similar matters he should be as free 
from interference from all sources as the board of 
education itself in the exercise of its legitimate 
functions. This supremacy of the teacher in all 
that legitimately pertains to the work of a teacher 
does not preclude helpful suggestion and advice 
from the superintendent, from parents, or from any- 
one capable of rendering such assistance ; but it 
does preclude all arbitrary dictation or constraint 
of the teacher in matters pertaining to the imme- 
diate control and instruction of the pupils. The 
success or failure of the school depends upon the 
teacher, and very largely upon his government. He 
should have liberty to govern. He should not be 
hampered by the board with unnecessary restric- 
tions, nor by the interference of meddlesome parents. 
It is not only right but necessary for the teacher to 
resist all interference with his own special preroga- 
tives in the school. It was good advice that Dr. 



144 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

White once gave to a body of teachers, when he said 
in substance, If parents are disposed to interfere in 
the management of the school, treat them respect- 
fully and politely, hear attentively and patiently all 
they have to say, and then go and do just as you 
please. 

Of course, all this implies ability on the teacher's 
part. It would be absurd and ridiculous for him to 
make strong claim of prerogatives he is not capable 
of exercising. Here a word may be said, paren- 
thetically, about the mistake frequently made, 
especially by young teachers, of leaning unduly 
upon the superintendent or some other superior au- 
thority in the control of his pupils. The teacher 
■must govern his school himself. He cannot do it by 
proxy. Nobody else can do it for him. A board 
of education can uphold and encourage its teachers 
by sustaining them, even though they make some 
mistakes, and the superintendent can do the same, 
while he advises and prompts from behind the 
scenes ; but whenever either board or superin- 
tendent finds it necessary to come between the 
teacher and the school, and take the reins of gov- 
ernment, there is little hope of the teacher's suc- 
cess in governing. Injudicious help from the su- 
perintendent tends to hasten the teacher's failure. 
It is not a good sign for a teacher to send up many 
cases of discipline to any higher authority. This 
sometimes becomes a matter of some delicacy for 
the superintendent, inasmuch as teachers are liable 



145 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

to misjudge his motives when he discourages the 
referring of many cases of discipline to him. It is 
not for the superintendent's sake, but the teacher's, 
that I emphasize the matter here. 

A firm determination to be master is a desirable 
state of mind in young teachers. I have felt called 
upon a good many times to say to young people 
about to begin the work of teaching, "Govern your 
schools! Control your pupils by the highest and 
best means within your resources ; but control 
them." 

2. The teacher should have due regard for paren- 
tal authority. This is almost a corollary of the first 
proposition. He should readily concede to parents 
in their sphere as much as he claims for himself in 
his own, and he should always remember that the 
parents of his pupils have a higher and deeper in- 
terest in them than he has. This second proposi- 
tion may have some bearing upon the practice of 
detaining pupils after the expiration of school 
hours. Is it in harmony with proper regard for 
parental prerogatives to detain pupils at the noon 
recess beyond the home dinner hour, thus interfer- 
ing with the order of the family? Or to detain 
them after the close of the afternoon session, when 
parents may have important appointments for them, 
or may require their help at home? These lines 
may recall to some who read them the practice of 
the writer, in days gone by, in some of these par- 
ticulars. But no matter. Sometimes we grow wiser 

146 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

as we grow older. I leave the foregoing questions 
to be answered by each reader for himself. Of one 
thing I am sure : it is not in harmony with the 
proposition now under consideration for a teacher 
to speak disrespectfully or disparagingly of a pupil's 
parents in the hearing of the pupil. There is some- 
times a strong temptation to transgress here. When 
a rude and insolent boy comes with ' ' my father 

says ," how natural the reply, "your father 

isn't running this school!" but all such replies 
would better remain unspoken. A teacher should 
studiously avoid whatever might tend to lower his 
pupils' respect and esteem for their fathers and 
mothers. As a rule, the teacher is liable to suffer 
most in this regard. 

When teachers themselves become parents, they 
sometimes see a good many of these things with 
different eyes from those they formerly used ; and 
still more when they become grandparents. 

3 . The highest good of each and every pupil should 
be the end and aim, of the teacher in all his plans a?id 
methods. Sometimes the good of pupils is in a 
measure sacrificed to appearances, or to a false no- 
tion of nice order. The great question with the 
teacher should ever be, not, how will this look? 
or what would visitors say ? but what will be best 
in the long run for these young lives ? Sometimes 
much good is sacrificed to a mere whim or caprice 
of the teacher, or to his ease and convenience. He 
that would save his life shall lose it. 



147 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

Certain conditions favorable to good govern- 
ment in school seem to deserve some attention. 
Among these are : 

i. A suitable number of pupils. The number 
of pupils which should constitute a school is 
not a fixed quantity. It varies with other con- 
ditions. Something depends upon the age and 
grade of the pupils, and a good deal upon the ex- 
perience and skill of the teacher. It is fair to say- 
that even a good teacher cannot secure the highest 
ends of government, say nothing of instruction, 
when the number of pupils much exceeds forty, 
without an undue expenditure of his own vitality. 
I know that teachers do sometimes keep sixty and 
even seventy or more pupils in seeming good order. 
For several years it was my lot to have charge of 
large city schools, ranging from a hundred to a 
hundred and fifty pupils, with assistants in class- 
rooms ; but I have no desire to repeat the experi- 
ence. When the number of pupils seated in one 
room under the control of one teacher passes fifty, 
the labor of management and control increases in 
more than an equal ratio. The old-time large 
school under a principal, with assistant teachers in 
class-rooms, is happily disappearing. The wiser 
plan is to give to each teacher in a separate room 
her appropriate number of pupils, and that number 
should range from twenty-five to forty, according, 
to circumstances. It is injustice, amounting to 
cruelty, to place an inexperienced girl, not yet out of 

148 



SCHOOI, GOVERNMENT. 

her teens, in charge of a school of fifty or sixty pu- 
pils of any age or grade. In every system of city 
schools, small schools of not more than twenty or 
twenty-five pupils should be provided for novices, 
until by experience they gain strength and con- 
fidence. If this were done, there would be fewer 
failures in government, and many children would 
be better governed and better taught. 

2. Comfortable and pleasing surroundings. Few 
teachers fully appreciate the effect of surroundings 
on the government of a school. Unswept floors, 
mutilated desks and benches, dirty windows, dingy 
walls, and foul atmosphere, invite the demons of 
mischief and disorder, while the opposite conditions 
repel them. 

A school house site should be selected with care. 
Heathf ulness and convenience of access should have 
due consideration — far more than they usually re- 
ceive ; but I wish to speak more particularly of 
beauty of prospect and surroundings. The culture 
and refinement of a community or neighborhood 
may often be fairly judged by the location and con- 
dition of its school house. School authorities in 
cities cannot always choose with strict reference to 
beauty of situation ; they should at least always 
avoid dark alleys, crowded and noisy streets, and the 
clatter and din of railroad stations and shops and 
factories. But there is small excuse for locating a 
country school house in an unsightly place, for a 
good site can almost always be obtained at small 



149 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

cost. The most beautiful spot that is not too re- 
mote from the center of the district should be 
selected — in or near a grove of forest trees, if pos- 
sible ; if not, trees should be planted without delay. 
Ample grounds should be secured — not less than 
two or three acres, and the teacher should feel it his 
duty as well as his pleasure to interest the pupils in 
improving and beautifying the grounds. I look 
back over a period of forty years with pleasure 
to a neat, white school house on the border of an 
Illinois prairie, near a beautiful grove, in which I 
taught for two years. Many a morning and even- 
ing hour in springtime did I spend with my boys in 
bringing young maple trees from the grove and 
planting them about the school house, while the 
girls made flower beds and planted flowers ; and I 
was pleased to learn recently that my name is still 
associated in that community with the trees we 
planted, now grown large and beautiful. 

While such things have a direct bearing upon 
the government of the school, they have a higher 
influence that is far-reaching. ' 'A school house so 
situated that the children who frequent it can look 
out in all directions upon scenes of romantic wild- 
ness or quiet beauty, will teach many lessons better 
than they can be learned from books. We are 
taught unconsciously by the objects that surround 
us ; and towering mountains and peaceful valleys, 
golden grain and shaded forests, rough wild rocks 
and pleasant gardens, villages dotting the neighbor- 



150 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

ing plains, and vessels gliding along the distant 
river, — all have truth for the intellect and beauty 
for the heart. Scenes like these leave upon the 
susceptible mind of a child a deep and lasting im- 
pression. Accustomed to look upon the beautiful 
in nature, he will learn to appreciate the beautiful 
in life. Thus instructed, he will be more apt to 
shun the low and the groveling, the profane and the 
vulgar, and to exemplify the sentiment, ' How 
near to what is good is what is fair ! ' " Thus 
wrote a devoted teacher who has gone to his 
reward. Another, still living, has written in 
similar strain : ' ' Beautiful surroundings have 
much to do in creating a love for the beautiful. A 
school house so situated that the children are 
brought face to face with the beautiful in nature, 
and surrounded on all sides with such scenery as 
must necessarily make them love the beautiful from 
the very association, will have its beneficial effects 
not only on the discipline and order of the school, 
but also in the formation of the moral character of 
the pupils. Children coming from such a school 
cannot fail to have a more refined taste and a purer 
moral character than those schooled amid surround- 
ings which lack every essential element of beauty. 
The teaching of the beauty surrounding us is un- 
conscious, but the lessons learned are none the less 
pleasing and none the less valuable. Every moun- 
tain-slope, every verdant valley, every winding 
stream, every charming landscape, has its influence 



151 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

in forming character. I,et children, then, always 
be surrounded with the beautiful, that the life 
within may be made to grow beautiful in harmony 
with the life without." 

For like reasons, due regard should be had 
in the planning and construction of school houses, 
to utility, convenience, healthfulness, comfort, and 
architectural beauty. Many school houses and 
schools of the past have been schools of vice, in 
large measure because of the discomfort, deformity 
and unsightliness of the appointments and sur- 
roundings. Simple beauty is not costly. Good 
judgment and taste are more needed than money. 
No gaudy extravagance is necessary ; it is simply 
a matter of proportions, of adaptation, of form, of 
color. 

It should be to teachers a matter of conscience 
as well as a pleasure to see that the school premises, 
within and without, are well kept. In so doing 
they help themselves while they bless the commu- 
nity. The proper ventilation and heating of the 
school room and the comfortable seating of the pu- 
pils bear directly upon the government of the 
school as well as upon the health and happiness of 
the pupils ; and the same may be said of the taste- 
ful arrangement and ornamentation of the room. 
To a consecrated and efficient teacher, it will often 
prove but a labor of love to transform a dingy and 
unsightly school room into one of taste, and simple 
beauty. Whitewash for the walls, paint or even 



152 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

soap and water for the wood- work, inexpensive cur- 
tains for the windows, pictures that may be had al- 
most without cost, a profusion of flowers and 
autumn leaves, are better educators than whips, 
leather straps, or branches of birch or beech. 

In 1849 I made an engagement to teach, for ten 
months, in a little frame school house by the road- 
side, in southwestern Ohio, at an annual salary of 
$200. The school house contained little beside some 
rude desks and benches, a stove, a water pail, and 
a broom. There were no shades for the windows, 
and nothing whatever suggestive of taste or beauty. 
Soon after the opening of the term, some good 
genius suggested the thought of doing something to 
improve the appearance of the school room. Deem- 
ing it useless to apply to the school directors, I 
went to town at the first opportunity and purchased 
sufficient five-cent calico to make curtains for all 
the windows, and tape and small nails with which 
to hang the curtains. I also purchased a number 
of cheap, bright-colored pictures. I think the 
whole cost did not exceed three dollars. Taking 
some of the older girls of the school into my confi- 
dence, I parceled out among them the work of hem- 
ming the curtains, and putting in the hem at the 
top a sufficient length of tape by which to hang 
them. When all were completed, I remained after 
school one evening long enough to put the curtains 
in place, two on each window, neatly draped over 
a large nail at each side. The pictures were tacked 



153 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

on the wall in such a way as to produce the best 
effect, and the transformation was complete. It 
was worth more than double the expenditure to 
witness the surprise and delight of the pupils as 
they assembled the next morning. A country 
school house with curtains on the windows and 
pictures on the walls was a thing hitherto unheard 
of in all that region, and the fame of the school 
and its teacher soon went abroad — cheap fame per- 
haps it was ; but certain it is that no other invest- 
ment I ever made brought more speedy returns or a 
larger percentage on the investment. Calls to 
other districts, at an increased salary, soon came, 
it is needless to add that discipline in that school 
became almost a vanishing quantity. 

3. A judicious organization of the school. By or- 
ganization is meant the orderly arrangement of school 
and school work — a time and place for everything 
and everything in its own time and place. It needs 
neither argument nor illustration to show that all 
the ends of good government may be more fully 
as well as more readily attained in a well organ- 
ized school than in one not well organized. 
And here it is to be observed that the highest 
degree of organization is not necessarily the best. 
The more simple a machine, the less friction its 
operation is likely to generate. The organization 
of a school should be as simple as possible — just 
enough of machinery to do the work effectively 
and no more. 



154 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

The proper seating of pupils belongs to the or- 
ganization of the school, and it is the absolute pre- 
rogative of the teacher. I have heard teachers 
complain of difficulty arising out of the claim of 
pupils to certain seats because of previous occu- 
pancy. A boy has been known to say, " I sat in 
this seat all last term, and it's mine." No such 
claim should be conceded for a moment. A 
pupil's seat is his to occupy only so long as, in the 
judgment of the teacher, his own or others' interests 
are best subserved by his sitting there. A change 
of seats is often desirable, and the teacher should 
expect and exact obedience in this as in everything 
else pertaining to the conduct of the school. 

It was the custom in former years to seat schools 
with reference to sex. The girls occupied one side 
of the room and the boys the other. In Cleveland, 
thirty-five years ago, and even later, boys and girls 
were taught in separate schools. In certain grades, 
there was a school of boys on one side of the 
hall and a school of girls of corresponding grades 
opposite. And when, in Akron, thirty years ago, 
boys and girls in all departments were seated pro- 
miscuously, it was looked upon as a doubtful inno- 
vation. But the practice is now generally prevalent 
throughout the country. It is more natural and 
home-like, it promotes good order, and in the hands 
of a wise teacher its tendency is refining and enno- 
bling to both sexes. 

Due regard should be had to size in seating. 



i55 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

This applies more particularly to country schools, 
in which pupils of all ages and sizes attend the same 
school. In any case, large pupils should not be 
compelled to occupy seats too small for comfort or 
tending to induce an unnatural or unhealthful 
posture of any part of the body ; nor, on the other 
hand, should small pupils be permitted to sit in 
seats too high or too large for their small and tender 
bodies. Proper support of feet and back is specially 
important, and the teacher is culpable who permits 
a little child to occupy a seat during the hours of 
school with feet dangling or back not properly sup- 
ported. Attention to such details would save a 
good many curved spines and femurs and strained 
and unhealthy muscles, as well as prevent a good 
deal of restlessness and disorder in school. 

In city schools of two grades, a good effect is 
produced by alternate seating. The pupils of the 
two grades should be alternated in rows across the 
room from side to side as well as from front to rear. 
Thus no two pupils of same grade would occupy 
adjoining seats, and when one grade is called out 
for recitation, the other grade is regularly dis- 
tributed over the room, with the greatest degree of 
isolation and the minimum of temptation to com- 
municate. 

Some regard may properly be had, in the seating 
of a school, to the conduct of pupils, — or perhaps 
better, to the degree of self-control attained. Pupils 
most in need of the restraining and directing 

156 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

influence of the teacher's presence, may sit near the 
front, where they will be more directly under the 
teacher's eye ; while those who can be depended on 
to govern themselves may have seats in the more 
remote parts of the room. 

I once made the experiment of seating a large 
city school according to rank or standing in scholar- 
ship. At the beginning of each month the pupils 
were ranked in the order of their standing for the 
previous month, and seated accordingly. It proved 
a very strong incentive to effort. The more ad- 
vanced and capable pupils strove for the honor seats 
in the upper section, and the less capable ones 
strove to reach a place as far as possible from the 
' ' tail ' ' of the class. But the device cannot be com- 
mended for its high moral effect in strengthening 
and ennobling character. The more earnest and 
skillful a teacher becomes, the less is he inclined to 
resort to such devices. The following words con- 
cerning the same matter are from Dr. White's book 
on School Management : 

' ' We have never visited a school using this de- 
vice without feeling a deep sympathy for the pupils 
seated in the lowest section, some of whom deserve 
higher commendation than those in the seats of 
honor. How often it is true that the low standing 
of pupils is not due to a lack of fidelity or praise- 
worthy effort, but to circumstances beyond their 
control, as a lack of opportunity for home study, 
the absence of needed assistance, etc. What a 



157 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

contrast there is in the home advantages of the 
pupils in a public school ! 

" More frequently, perhaps, a failure to reach a 
high standing is due to a lack of natural ability, 
especially ability to do easily what is required in 
school ; and certainly dullness is not a dishonor, 
though it may be a misfortune. Nothing in school 
management is more clearly reprehensible than the 
placing of a stigma, directly or indirectly, on dullness 
or other accident of birth. All pupils enter a school 
with equal rights, and are entitled to equal consid- 
eration. The dull child, whose standing does not 
crowd ' ioo,' has as much right, if he be faithful, 
to look to the school for kindness and honor, as the 
brightest. No teacher has the right to put a faith- 
ful child, though dull, in a seat on which rests a 
shadow of dishonor. There is no place in any 
school for injustice or inhumanity. No wise parent 
would willingly send a dull child to a school where 
dullness is made a disgrace. ' ' 

An important part of the organization of a 
school or a system of schools is the classification 
of the pupils. Every school should be classified ; 
the degree and kind of classification will depend on 
a variety of conditions. When only a small number 
of pupils can be brought together and their attain- 
ments vary widely, as in the country schools, no 
very close classification is practicable ; but when 
several hundred pupils can be assembled at one 
place, there will usually be a sufficient number, of 

158 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

like attainments, to form classes to be instructed 
together, and thus result what are called graded 
schools. It is not necessary to the present purpose 
to consider at length the subject of classification. 
The important thing is that each and every pupil 
be kept where he will have the fullest opportunity 
and the best incentive to use his time and energies 
profitably. This is a matter of much importance. 
The boy whose work is too heavy for him is liable 
to become discouraged and relax his efforts, and so 
become a disturbing element ; while the boy with 
too little to do is ever subject to the solicitations of 
him who finds work for idle hands to do. It may 
not always be wisest to adhere rigidly to a strict 
classification. If the work of a given grade proves 
too light for a given pupil, and he is not prepared 
to undertake the work of the grade next above, let 
him recite some one study in both grades for a time, 
with a view to overtaking the grade above him. 
For purposes of this kind, and for other reasons, 
half-yearly grades and promotions are preferable. 
The steps being shorter, the pupils pass more 
readily from grade to grade either way, and a closer 
and more exact classification becomes possible. 
But semi-annual classification is practicable only 
where the number of pupils is sufficient to give to 
each teacher a proper quota of pupils without an un- 
due number of classes. The point I wish to em- 
phasize here is that the ends of good government 
in school are promoted by giving to each pupil 



159 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

work suitable in amount and kind and seeing that 
he does it. 

A question sometimes mooted among teachers is 
the best number of grades to constitute a school. 
Most teachers prefer one grade. It is claimed that 
when a school consists of but one grade there is 
greater economy of time and labor. The teacher 
has fewer lessons and exercises to prepare, the en- 
tire school can take the same written work at the 
same time, and the teacher has more time to render 
needed assistance to individual pupils. I am in- 
clined to the opinion expressed by Dr. Harris in one 
of his St. Louis reports, that, all things considered, 
two grades in a school are best, with alternate study 
and recitation. This is especially true of pupils old 
enough to learn lessons from books. The habit of 
quiet, persistent, and unaided study far outweighs all 
the assistance the teacher may give in the pupil's 
study hour. The teacher's time to help — rather to 
stimulate and encourage to effort — is in the recita- 
tion hour. The danger is that with a teacher ever 
at hand to render assistance in study the pupils will 
be systematically trained into dependence and help- 
lessness. My observation is that the tendency of 
modern methods of instruction is altogether too 
much in this direction. It should be one of the 
chief aims of school instruction and school discipline 
to train pupils into self-reliance and self- helpfulness. 
Of course it is easier to help a pupil — yes, easier to 
do his work for him — than to see that he does it 



1 60 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

properly himself ; and from the standpoint of the 
teacher's convenience or ease, or present popularity 
with the pupils, one grade is probably preferable 
to two. But with the best results in character and 
scholarship in view, I think a different conclusion 
must be reached. 

There are some other elements in the organiza- 
tion of a school upon which it seems scarcely neces- 
sary to dwell at length, the subject having been 
treated elsewhere in this volume. What has already 
been said about providing for each pupil his appro- 
priate amount of work implies the necessity for a 
carefully prepared course of study. It should be well 
understood that a course of study is designed to fa- 
cilitate and not to hinder the work of the school. It 
should be followed with reasonable strictness, but 
not slavishly. A measure of flexibility is necessary in 
this as in most things pertaining to the organiza- 
tion and management of the school. When organi- 
zation and system conflict with the highest good of 
the pupils, organization and system should yield. 
I have known teachers, and even superintendents, 
who seemed not to understand this. 

A daily program is a matter of importance, and 
it should extend to study as well as to recitation — 
not with too much rigidity, but so as to serve as a 
general guide to pupils in the proper use of their 
time. The program of recitations should be care- 
fully adjusted and then followed with a good degree 
of strictness. One exercise should not be permitted 

161 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

to trench upon the time of another. It is better to 
stop in the midst of the solution of a problem than 
to over-run time. A lesson in promptness may be 
of more value than a lesson in arithmetic. When 
two or more teachers have to do with the same 
school, promptness in changing classes is especially- 
incumbent on all. In such case it is a good prac- 
tice to assign the next lesson at the beginning of 
the recitation, and when the closing signal is struck 
let the class be excused at once, without waiting 
" for just one more word of explanation " or " one 
further illustration." All that can possibly be 
gained by delay at such a time never compensates 
for the jar it occasions and the consequent friction 
and irritation. 

The organization of a school is scarcely complete 
without some code of rules and regulations, written 
or unwritten — preferably the latter. In most well- 
managed schools, country as well as city, will be 
found a system of rules and regulations, prepared 
by the superintendent or some other competent per- 
son, adopted by the board of education, and printed 
with the prescribed course of study. These should 
be general and reasonable, and susceptible of en- 
forcement. Before adopting any rule for the 
government of a school or a system of schools, it is 
well to consider whether it can be fairly carried out, 
as well as whether the results of its enforcement 
will be good. But I have more immediate refer- 
ence here to the rules and regulations, which 

162 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

concern the closer relations of teacher and pupils, 
and lie wholly within this province. These may be 
more specific and should grow out of existing con- 
ditions. I have intimated that they need not be 
written, and generally they need not be formally 
stated. L,ike Topsy, they are not made but grow. 
Or perhaps, for the most part, they do not even 
grow, but are found ready-made in the conscious- 
ness or the moral sense of the pupils, and need only 
to be made operative by the presence and personality 
of the teacher. To this end they should be very 
clearly outlined in the teacher's mind. 

The sum of what I would say to the young 
teacher here is, Do not write out and hang up, or 
even formally announce, a long list of requirements 
and prohibitions. Rely upon the pupil's moral 
sense to whatever extent it exists, and cultivate it 
where it is lacking. When thou shalt or thou shalt 
not needs to be spoken, say it with becoming em- 
phasis, and enforce it. 

There remains to be considered the most impor- 
tant, the most essential condition of good school 
government, namely : 

4. A teacher. The teacher makes the school, 
is a trite but true saying. The success or failure of 
the school depends upon the teacher. And here 
two things are absolutely essential : The teacher 
must be clothed with authority, and he must be 
able to exercise authority. Herein is the sum of 
the whole matter. Of the first of these conditions 



163 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

I have already spoken ; I need not dwell upon it 
here at length. Certain it is that the teacher must 
govern the school if it is governed at all, and he 
can govern best when he has fullest liberty and is 
freest from outside interference. The driver of a 
spirited team of horses is not apt to be greatly aided 
in his undertaking, when a nervous passenger at 
his side lays hold of the reins. 

It is necessary and right for a teacher to main- 
tain his supremacy in all that legitimately pertains 
to the work of instruction and discipline, and 
to resist all interference with the free exercise of his 
functions as a teacher ; but this implies ability and 
fitness on his part. For him to make strong claim 
of prerogatives which he is incapable of exercising 
would bring only merited contempt. 

All I propose in this connection is to indicate 
some of the elements of governing power in the 
teacher. 

Well, "Let him first be a man," as Rousseau 
puts it. ' ' Whoever is well educated to discharge 
the duty of a man, cannot be badly prepared to fill 
up any of those offices that have a relation to him. 
He will, on occasion, as soon be- 
come anything else that a man ought to be as any 
person whatever. ' ' The first essential of strong per- 
sonal influence is manhood — manliness. Would 
you govern your school easily and well, be a manly 
man or a womanly woman. 

The chief cause of failure in government among 

164 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

teachers is want of character. Children read char- 
acter by instinct. No mere appearance of virtue or 
assumed goodness can command their respect and 
confidence ; it must be genuine. A teacher of selfish 
nature and low purpose may keep order and secure a 
measure of outward obedience by force of authority 
and will, but he is powerless to secure the higher re- 
sults of good control. Would you rule supreme in the 
school room, would you hold sway in the hearts of 
your pupils, prompting and inspiring them to noble 
living and high endeavor, be yourself pure, and true, 
and strong. 

It is one of the blessed compensations of the 
teacher's office that it affords such strong and con- 
stant incentive to self -improvement. His contact 
with young and vigorous life, and his contempla- 
tion of the possibilities of growth and attainment, 
tend to elevate his ideals and inspire him to seek 
for their realization in his own life, not for himself 
alone, but also for the sake of his pupils. 

To be strong in government the teacher needs a 
large element of humanity in his composition. His 
breast should be full of the milk of human kindness. 
He should be an ardent lover of his kind, a true 
philanthropist. 

" There's nought in this bad world like sympathy." 

It is the golden rule in the heart. The teacher 
who has this power of putting himself in his pupil's 
place has an immense advantage. He can draw 
near to him, can come into the inner chamber of his 

165 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

young life, when the door would be shut and barred 
against the cold and unsympathetic teacher. 

This humane or sympathetic spirit is near of kin 
to love, that greatest and best thing in the world ; 
it is eternal and never fails. Love is the most pow- 
erful thing in the world ; it saves from sin and 
death, and nothing else can do that. And another 
blessed thing about love is that the more one gives 
the more he has. But like nearly all good things, 
it has its counterfeits, A weak and sickly senti- 
mentalism is not unfrequently put forward in its 
place. Genuine love is not shown by petting and 
fondling pupils, nor by laxness in discipline or in- 
dulgence and slackness in requiring the perform- 
ance of school duties ; but rather by kind and faith- 
ful correction of their faults, and by painstaking in 
holding them up to a high standard of excellence. 

There is also an ingenuousness — a frankness, 
candor and openness of mind — which tends to 
strengthen the hands of the teacher. It inspires 
confidence and good will. It is the opposite of sly 
cunning, craftiness, and equivocation. A teacher 
should see sharply and be able to discern motives ; 
he should not be easily deceived or imposed upon ; 
but he should not be himself a dissembler or trick- 
ster. 

The teacher should be in earnest. One man 
thoroughly in earnest is worth a regiment of dawd- 
lers. The bulk of the world's work is done by 
honest striving, not by strokes of genius. Real 

1 66 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

earnestness in the teacher does not reveal itself in 
fussiness or noise, but rather in his glowing counte- 
nance and fervid tones. It arises out of a high 
sense of duty and clear and right views of life. A 
truly earnest soul is deep and calm, and there is al- 
ways about him a glow of warmth which makes it 
good and pleasant to be near him. How different 
the atmosphere of a school room which has in it a 
teacher with glowing fervency of spirit, from that 
of one having a languid, listless, indifferent teacher! 
The one stimulates and inspires ; the other dissi- 
pates and stupefies. 

In order to govern well, a teacher must have 
courage. He should hear and heed the voice of the 
Great Teacher, saying to him, ' ' Be strong and of 
a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dis- 
mayed." 

11 The brave man is not he who feels no fear, 
For that were stupid and irrational, 
But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, 
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. ' ' 

It sometimes requires no small measure of cour- 
age for the teacher to stand upright and do the 
thing he knows is duty. It is sometimes no small 
undertaking for him to maintain his prerogative 
and enforce obedience. I once knew an experienced 
and successful teacher to shrink and quail before a 
large high school on first taking charge of it. The 
battle was lost in the first half hour, and the teacher 
was compelled to retire after a few days of fruitless 
effort to regain control. 

167 



the; teacher and his work. 

It is not an easy thing to deal justly and impar- 
tially with pupils under all circumstances, especially 
when the teacher's advancement, or perhaps his 
position, is at stake. It sometimes requires a good 
deal of courage. I once knew a case in which a 
young high-school teacher displayed the right kind 
of grit. One of her pupils, the son of a very promi- 
nent citizen, was indolent and had neglected his 
studies. When the time came for promotion, the 
teacher reported against him — marked him ' ' failed. ' ' 
When the case came to the superintendent's atten- 
tion he said it would never do. The boy's father 
was too prominent a man to be offended. It must 
be fixed up in some way. But the teacher refused 
to alter the record, saying she would lose her posi- 
tion first. What cringelings most men are, and 
how admirable is true courage ? 

The wise teacher regards public opinion, but he 
regards conscience and duty more. 

A schoolmaster should be the master of himself. 
He that would manage and control others, must 
first be able to manage and control himself. The 
teacher needs to have all his powers well in hand, 
ready for every work and prepared for every 
emergency. He should have the ready use of him- 
self, and all his powers should be obedient to his 
will. Especially should he be able to control his 
temper. There is much to try the patience of the 
teacher. Indeed there are few callings more trying 
to the patience, and none in which the maintenance 

168 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

of a calm and cheerful temper is more essential. 
Some of the qualities which give the teacher his 
greatest power, the ardent spirit, the warm heart, 
become, without due control, the sources of his be- 
setting sins. Sudden flashes of temper and hasty, 
unguarded words come unbidden, to be repented of 
afterwards in dust and ashes. Mettle in horse or 
man is a good thing when held in with bit and 
bridle. 

Good executive ability is essential to good gov- 
ernment. This is the sum or resultant of many 
qualities — force of character, strong will, good judg- 
ment, tact, energy, promptness, persistence. It 
implies a knowledge of what to do and how to do it, 
as well as courage and efficiency in action. It im- 
plies boldness without recklessness, promptness 
without rashness, persistence without obstinacy. 
Good judgment, or what is usually known as good 
common sense, is really the basal element of good 
executive ability. No amount of will power or 
energy can supply the lack of good judgment. In- 
deed the more will power one has without good 
judgment, the worse he is off. The wise adaptation 
of means to ends is all-essential. What is best to 
be done and what ought not to be done must be 
decided in the school room, without much delibera- 
tion, many times every day. Blessed are the teach- 
ers who have large natural endowment in this 
direction. Yet those of us who are not thus en- 
dowed should not give way to discouragement. An 

169 



THE TKACH^R AND HIS WORK. 

English school inspector of large experience has 
said: " Everyone may acquire the power of ruling 
others by steadily setting himself to do so, by think- 
ing well over his orders before he gives them, by 
giving them without faltering or equivocation, by 
obeying them himself, by determining in every case 
and at whatever cost to see them obeyed, and above 
all, by taking care that they are reasonable and 
right, and properly adapted to the nature of child- 
hood, to its weaknesses and needs." 

Not the easiest nor the least important part of 
our subject, are the instrumentalities or means for 
securing the ends of good government in school. 
This branch of the subject seems to fall naturally 
into two divisions; namely, the moral instrumen- 
talities, and the mechanical instrumentalities. If, in 
considering these, there should seem to be some 
overlapping, or some repetition of things already 
said, sufficient excuse may be found in their im- 
portance. 

Under moral instrumentalities I include — 

i . The personality of the teacher. This is the 
sum of all the teacher is, and it plays a very import- 
ant part in the government of the school. It is 
what may be called the moral power of the teacher's 
own person, his unspoken and unconscious influence. 

Bishop Huntington contrasts two schools some- 
what as follows: In one is a presiding presence, 
which at first puzzles the observer to analyze or ex- 
plain. The first thing noticeable is the absence of 



170 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

effort. Kase and repose are combined with natural 
and spontaneous energy. There is nothing of lan- 
guid indifference, nor of feverish excitement. ' 'The 
teacher accomplishes his ends with singular pre- 
cision. He speaks less than is common, and with 
less pretension when he does speak; yet his idea is 
conveyed and caught, and his will is promptly done. 
When he arrives order begins. When he addresses 
an individual or a class, attention comes, and not as 
if it were extorted by fear, nor even paid by con- 
science as a duty, but cordially. Nobody seems to 
be looking at him particularly, yet he is felt to be 
there, through the whole place. He does not seem 
to be attempting anything elaborately with anybody, 
but the business is done, and done remarkably well. ' ' 
In another school is a teacher of a different 
style. Here there is no end of painful and labori- 
ous striving. The teacher "is a conscious pertur- 
bation; a principled paroxysm; an embodied flutter; 
a moral stir; an honest human hurly-burly. In his 
present intention he is just as sincere as the other. 
Indeed, he tries so hard that, by one of the common 
perversions of human nature, his pupils appear to 
have made up their minds to see to it that he shall 
try harder yet, and not succeed after all. So he 
talks much, and the multiplication of words only 
hinders the multiplication of integers and fractions, 
enfeebles his government and beclouds the recita- 
tion. His expostulations roll over the boys' con- 
sciences like bullets shot obliquely over the ice; and. 



171 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

his gestures illustrate nothing but impotency and 
despair." 

If we ask the former of these teachers the secret 
of his power, he will not be able to tell. If we tell 
the latter that his feverish and restless striving is 
his weakness, he will be unable to apply at once an 
effective remedy. If we ask what makes the differ- 
ence in the two teachers, a satisfactory answer can- 
not be found in difference of method, or in anything 
said or done by either. We must look within. 
There is obviously, in each case, some undercurrent 
of influence, some internal quality of manhood, act- 
ing as an unseen force in producing the visible re- 
sults. Is it not fair to infer that there is always, 
apart from the teacher's direct purpose or conscious 
effort, an unconscious teaching which takes its 
quality from the very essence of the teacher's char- 
acter, so that oftentimes he teaches most when he 
is not aware that he is teaching at all ? We cannot 
otherwise account for the disparity often observed 
between conditions and results. Every experienced 
supervisor of schools who has observed closely has 
had occasion to note this disparity. Sometimes 
when external conditions seem most favorable, the 
results are very disappointing. And again where 
little has been expected the best results appear. 

A writer in a late number of School Education 
tells of a teacher who took charge of a room in good 
condition. She had had ten years' experience, a 
superior education, and commanding presence. In 



172 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

three days the room was idle and noisy; in ten days, 
in very serious disorder; in a month, in rebellion. 
Those who had been the best pupils under other 
teachers, seemed inspired to do all the evil deeds 
possible to children of eleven or twelve years old. 

This teacher's successor was a lady of little ex- 
perience, of girlish figure and presence, and with 
small knowledge of graded school work. In three 
days the pupils were orderly and studious; in a 
week they began to ask what they could do for her; 
and in two weeks it became necessary to forbid 
their coming about her desk in droves before the 
opening of school. The little ruffians of her prede- 
cessor were well behaved and studious, ambitious 
to please their teacher by good conduct and hard 
study. Every apparent advantage was with the 
first teacher; yet she would ruin the best disposition 
in a short time, while her successor would make the 
sourest ones amiable. 

And so it is generally that the most effective 
teaching is not that which is done of set purpose, 
but that which flows out unconsciously from the 
teacher's inner life and character. 

2. The moral atmosphere of the school room. 
Every school room, has an atmosphere of its own. 
It may be clear and pure, invigorating and life- 
giving; or it may be murky and foul, filled with ex- 
halations of moral poison. 

I have come to think of schools as living organ- 
isms, each having its own peculiar temper or spirit, 



173 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

somewhat as we speak of the mettle of a horse. It 
is said that every locomotive that runs on the track 
has a temper of its own, and that though two loco- 
motives be made of the same material and of same 
dimensions, and every way as nearly alike as it is 
possible for master-workmen to make them, they 
will differ widely in what may be called temper or 
mettle. One will be nervous and fiery, starting at 
a touch of the lever, while the other will be power- 
ful but sluggish, slow to start and slow to stop. 
To such an extent is this true, as I have been told 
by those who have stood on the foot-board, that an 
experienced engineer about to start on a trip is as 
much concerned to know what locomotive he is to 
take out, as is the coachman to know what team he 
is to drive. 

The school has something akin to this. Each 
has its own peculiar spirit, or moral atmosphere, so 
to speak; and upon this moral atmosphere depends in 
large'J measure the results in character. To be in a 
school whose atmosphere is charged with spiritual 
power is of itself a good education. 

Of course, the spirit or temper of the school 
comes largely from the teacher. It is mainly an 
emanation from the inner recesses of his soul; so 
that if the spirit of a school is wrong and needs cor- 
recting, the place for the teacher to begin is often 
with his own spirit. When the spirit and purpose, 
voice and manner, of a strong teacher are right, 
they rapidly become all-pervading, and constitute 



174 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

tlie most powerful instrumentality in the govern- 
ment of the school. 

3. Moral Sanctions. Under this head I include 
(1.) the individual moral sense — conscience. In 
appealing judiciously to the individual moral sense 
the teacher accomplishes a double purpose: he culti- 
vates and increases this power, while he utilizes for 
present purposes what already exists. And no 
matter how dormant or how feeble this power; the 
teacher should not neglect to call it into exercise. 
True, it is very discouraging work to appeal to the 
moral sense of pupils who seem to have none. But 
the feebler this power, the more careful and per- 
sistent will the conscientious teacher be in calling it 
into exercise, to the end that it may grow. Pupils 
should often be brought face to face with the right 
and wrong in their conduct. Is it right ? is always 
a good question for the teacher to ask in dealing 
with the conduct of pupils. 

(2.) I include also under the head of moral 
sanctions the public opinion of the school. This 
should always be on the teacher's side, which of 
course should be the side of right. The teacher 
with the public sentiment of his school against him 
has a hard lot. If this condition cannot be changed, 
the relation should be dissolved. It sometimes hap- 
pens that the general moral sense of a school has 
been so far perverted that the majority of the pupils 
sympathize with wrong and wrong doers. It is a 
very bad symptom in a school when a considerable 



175 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

number of the pupils are ever ready to manifest 
their pleasure at the success of mischief and wrong. 
I was once present at an interview between the lady- 
principal of a high school and a young man, one of 
her pupils. The young man said to her very petu- 
lantly: "I'd like to know what you have against 
me. I hav'nt been doing anything." The teacher 
replied: "I can tell you very quickly what I have 
against you. You are always on the side of wrong. 
You show that you are pleased when any disorder 
occurs or when anything wrong is done in the school. 
I want to find you on the other side. ' ' The young 
man stood convicted; the teacher had made her case. 
4. Direct Instruction. Besides the silent in- 
fluences and subtile forces which proceed from the 
life and character of the teacher and the general 
tone and spirit of the school, there is some place for 
conscious and formal instruction. The understand- 
ing must be enlightened, the feelings and sympa- 
thies must be enlisted on the side of right and duty, 
and the will must be trained to virtuous choice and 
action. This opens the broad field of moral instruc- 
tion and training, into which I cannot fully enter 
now. Suffice it to say here that the teacher should 
avoid sermonizing. Abstract moral lectures are as 
a rule distasteful and irksome to young minds. 
Brief familiar talks, on suitable occasion, with free 
use of concrete examples and illustrations, beautiful 
bits of poetry, choice maxims, and gems of thought 
and sentiment, are among the most effective means 

176 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

of cultivating the sense of right and duty in the 
young, at whatever stage of advancement. 

5. Careful diagnosis and thorough treatment. 
An ignorant and unskilled physician is called a 
quack. His diagnosis of disease is very superficial, 
and his treatment is generally aimed at the symp- 
toms and not at the seat or cause of the disease. 
He deals largely in external applications, which 
may temporarily mitigate the trouble, but with a 
strong probability of its breaking out in a worse 
form in the same or a different place. He some- 
times also administers opiates, which alleviate the 
pain without removing the disease. 

But the wise and skillful physician gives little 
heed to mere symptoms, except as they point to the 
deeper cause. He seeks out the cause and labors 
to remove it. He strives to secure better action of 
the heart, lungs, and liver; better digestion and as- 
similation of the food; in short, a higher state of 
vitality in the system. He knows that if these 
things can be secured, the symptoms will take care 
of themselves. He knows, too, that opiates and 
ointments applied directly to the symptoms are not 
only for the most part useless, but often positively 
harmful, resulting in a lowering of vitality. 

Constitutional treatment is best, in school man- 
agement as well as in the practice of medicine; yet 
it is doubtless true that a large part of the discipline 
in schools consists in dealing with mere surface 
symptoms. Many teachers waste their energies 



177 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

and wear out their lives in dealing with whispering 
and other forms of petty disorder which they never 
succeed in permanently correcting. Better and 
more lasting results may be secured by searching 
out and removing the causes of disorder. "When 
the spirit of the school is right, when the pupils are 
interested in study and filled with right purposes 
and desires, the petty misdemeanors upon which so 
many teachers waste their efforts, and which are 
usually but symptoms of a want of right spirit and 
purpose, will speedily disappear. And more espe- 
cially the grosser forms of wrong-doing among pupils 
can be dealt with effectively only by reaching the 
springs of conduct. 

I was once called upon by the principal of one 
of the schools under my supervision for advice and 
assistance in the matter of profanity among the 
boys of her building. She had reason to believe 
that the practice was very prevalent among them, 
and was at a loss to know how to deal with it. 

I have known cases in which it was publicly an- 
nounced that every boy caught swearing would be 
whipped severely; and this might seem to be a 
simple and direct remedy. But it would be worth 
considering whether the boy who swears and is 
whipped would be likely to swear less or more — 
probably the latter, but with greater care about 
being caught at it. 

In the case mentioned, at the request of the 
principal, I spent the greater part of a day in her 

178 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

building, going from room to room, learning all I 
could as to the extent of the evil, and doing all that 
was possible to remedy it. The method of proced- 
ure in the different rooms varied somewhat, accord- 
ing to the age of the pupils and other conditions, 
but in the main it was about as follows: 

"I have come to see you to-day," I said to the 
boys, ' 'on a rather unpleasant errand. I have heard 
that a good many of the boys of this building use 
profane language, and I have come to see about it. 
I have not come expecting to punish anyone, but I 
wish to persuade the boys who are in the habit of 
using bad words to give up the practice. I suppose 
most of them do it without thinking how wrong it 
is and how much harm it does. It is very wrong, 
does no good to anyone, and does a great deal of 
harm. It is a very useless practice. The Savior 
sa3 r s you cannot change the color of a hair by 
swearing. If I could, by standing here and swear- 
ing great blistering oaths, change one of these gray 
hairs to jet black, or one of these black ones to a clear 
white, how much good would it do ? How much 
would I gain? But I could not even do that. 
Swearing would not make a white hair black nor a 
black one white. No, swearing is a very useless 
habit. 

' 'Swearing is a very degrading practice. It low- 
ers one in his own eyes as well as in the eyes of all 
who know him. When you hear a company of men 
cursing and swearing, do you say: 'What excellent 



179 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

people, what refined gentlemen?' Do you not 
rather think: 'What degraded men, what base fel- 
lows these are?' What would you think to hear 
your teacher swear ? or your Sunday school super- 
intendent, or the pastor of the church you attend ? 
No, good people do not swear. It always seems to 
me, when I hear anyone swear, that he is calling 
attention to his own badness. It seems as if he 
said ' I^ook at me, everybody ! see how vile I am ! 
see what a bad heart I have ! see how much bad- 
ness comes out of my mouth !' 

"Besides all this, swearing is very wicked and 
cannot go unpunished. The profane swearer is 
without excuse, seeming to defy God and his law; 
and when we remember that God is just and 
punishes sin, we shudder at his daring." 

Having by such words as these, made the 
strongest possible impression on the minds of the 
boys, I went on to say further : 

"I hope every boy here who has fallen into this 
practice wishes to get out of it; and the best way to 
start in forsaking a wrong course is to make an 
honest confession. I would like to know how many 
do use profane language. I shall not urge you to 
tell me, but if you do so of your own free will I 
shall be gratified. I shall not punish, nor even 
chide, anyone. You may rise. (All stand.) 
Those who are willing that I should know the 
truth about the matter may remain standing, and 
those who prefer not to report concerning themselves 

180 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

may be seated. (Not more than two or three boys 
in the entire building took their seats at this test.) 
I am pleased to find you so frank. I hope no one 
will be tempted to make an incorrect report. Now, 
those who never use profane language may be 
seated. (At this, a few, perhaps four or five in a 
room, took their seats. ) All may now be seated. I 
am very much pleased at the spirit you have shown. 
I take it as a sign that you really prefer right to 
wrong, and only needed to have your attention 
called to the matter. 

"I have one thing more to ask of you, and I feel 
quite sure you will be willing to grant it. I want you 
to set your faces against this bad practice. If you 
have formed the habit, determine at once to break it. 
Some of you may have to try pretty hard; but it 
will be easier now than when you are older. The 
longer any habit grows, the stronger it becomes. If 
you forget and fail, do not give up but try again 
and again. By all agreeing together you can be a 
great help to each other. If some day on the play- 
ground you should hear a bad word from John's 
lips, step up to him, lay your hand on his shoulder, 
and say to him, kindly, 'Did you forget, John? you 
promised not to use bad words.' 

"Now, if you are ready, boys, we'll take a rising 
vote. All who promise to set themselves against all 
bad language and to use only the language of good 
people, may stand. (All but one or two rose 
promptly. ) 



181 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

"You have done a good thing to-day, boys. 
Now stand by your colors. I shall come again 
soon, to see how you get along." 

And the boys felt that they had done a good 
thing, and were very happy over it. 

6. Training into right habits. It is not enough 
that the feelings and sympathies of pupils be occa- 
sionally aroused and enlisted on the side of right 
and duty, nor that they be consciously and form- 
ally instructed in right doing; they must be con- 
stantly and persistently prompted and held up in 
the right, until the habit of right doing is formed. 
Right habits are the result of training. No psychical 
law is more fundamental in education or of more 
general application than that stated by Dr. Reid 
when he says : "I conceive it to be a part of our 
constitution, that what we have been accustomed to 
do, we acquire not only a facility but a proneness to 
do on like occasions; so that it requires a particular 
will or effort to forbear it, but to do it requires very 
often no will at all. " 

It is largely this law of our human nature that 
makes education possible. And training is far more 
effective than talking. The secret of successful 
school management is not in telling pupils what is 
right and chiding and scolding them for not doing 
it, but rather in the strong will, the persistent pur- 
pose of the teacher, that secures the doing of the 
right until it becomes habitual. If the pupils are 
tardy and irregular in attendance, let the whole 

182 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

weight of influence and authority be brought to 
bear, until promptness and regularity become a 
habit. A little more than twenty-five years ago, 
tardiness was very prevalent in the Akron schools. 
I remember that one teacher of a grammar school 
had a record of more than two hundred cases of 
tardiness in her first month, and lost count before 
the month was up. By judicious effort this condi- 
tion was completely changed in a few months, and 
by continuous training the habit of promptness and 
regularity became fixed, and so continues to this 
day. Cases of tardiness are now rare, and some 
schools run month after month without a single 
case. In the same way, bad habits of any kind may 
be overcome and good habits may be established 
instead. 

7. Incentives. Motives are the springs of 
human will and action. Conduct is determined by 
the springs from which it flows. Psychologists 
have felt the difficulty of classifying motives. Dr. 
McCosh says: "To endeavor to give a complete 
and exhaustive list would be a bold undertaking. 
Such a classification would at the best be very im- 
perfect. ' ' They have been loosely classed as natural 
and artificial, as low and high. There is prob- 
ably no better general classification than that given 
by Dr. Haven. He says: "As to the nature of 
the motives from which we act, they are manifestly 
of two kinds, and widely distinct, viz. , desire and 
duty — the agreeable and the right, each constituting 

183 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

a powerful motive to action. We find ourselves 
under the influence of these motives, acting, now 
from desire, now from sense of duty, now in view 
of what is in itself agreeable, and now in view of 
what is right, and the various motives which in- 
fluence us and result in action, may be resolved into 
one or other of these powerful elements. ' ' 

These two are often antagonistic — a law in the 
members warring against the law of the mind. "It 
is only when desire and duty coincide that the 
highest happiness can be reached, when we no 
longer desire and long for, because we no longer 
view as agreeable that which is not strictly right — 
a state never fully realized in this life." It is just 
here that the subject of incentives comes into the 
domain of the school and the teacher. The incent- 
ives to which the teacher appeals and which he 
makes effective, determine the measure of results in 
character which he secures. It is the duty, and it 
should be the aim and purpose of the teacher to di- 
rect all his effort and bring to bear all the weight 
of his influence and authority, to the end that his pu- 
pils shall more and more bring desire into subjection 
and make duty the controlling motive in their lives. 

The subject is one of transcendent interest and 
importance, but I can not pursue it further here. 
For a fuller and better discussion of the whole sub- 
ject of school incentives the reader is referred to Dr. 
White's Elements of Pedagogy, p. 320, and to his 
later work, School Management, p. 130. 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

8. Self -reporting . To this many teachers object. 
They not only deny its value as an agency for good, 
but condemn it as positively harmful. One writer 
condemns the practice because of the injustice likely 
to be done. Conscientious pupils will report faith- 
fully, while the evil-disposed will report untruth- 
fully and receive greater credit than those more de- 
serving. Another objection is stated in these 
words ; "It trains the children to be liars. Feeling 
that those who report the fewest faults are they 
who will receive the best marks and reports, irre- 
spective of conduct, it is a short step, for even an 
honest pupil, from truth to falsehood; and even 
those who have always been accounted truthful 
have such temptations placed before them that, with 
the weakness incident to the moral nature of child- 
hood, they in many cases become untruthful. ' ' 

All this seems to take a good deal for granted. 
An ignorant blunderer may do a great deal of mis- 
chief with the finest and sharpest of tools. It will 
not be denied that harm is likely to come from 
stupid and clumsy handling of self-reporting in 
schools. But it need not be assumed that a pupil's 
reports to his teacher must necessarily be made the 
basis for "credits," "marks and reports," to such 
an extent as to place him under strong temptation 
to lie. 

The careless and indiscriminate use of self- 
reporting is to be condemned; but that school is in a 
very deplorable state in which there is not place for 

185 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

some kind and some measure of self -reporting. I 
have seen schools in which it was the custom for 
the teacher at the close of the day to call the roll 
publicly, and each pupil was expected to report his 
misdemeanors for the day, while the teacher stood 
as a recording angel to write them in a book. I 
can conceive of conditions under which even this 
would be better than the surveillance and espionage 
prevalent in some schools; but neither is to be com- 
mended. There is a better way. 

I have seen a teacher, at the close of the day, 
seated at her desk with pencil in hand, as the pu- 
pils filed by on leaving the room, and anyone who 
had anything to report whispered it for none but the 
teacher's ear. With right relations existing be- 
tween teacher and pupils, a plan like this may be 
used with good effect. 

The best system of general self-reporting I have 
ever seen in operation, was in a large high school. 
The school occupied a large assembly room with 
recitation rooms attached. The principal (a lady), 
at her own cost, supplied each pupil with a small 
pass-book, costing but a penny or two, in which to 
keep a daily record of deportment. The books 
were suitably ruled and the pupils received definite 
instructions as to the manner of keeping the record. 
The books were taken up and inspected weekly. I 
sat at the desk with the principal one Saturday 
while she "went through" these books. In one 
she wrote, "Well done, James; your record is 

186 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

good." In another, "I am pleased with the effort 
you are making, Mary. ' ' In another, ' 'Try to be 
strong, Henry; do not give way to temptation." 
One book she put aside, saying, "I must see that 
boy; I fear that he has not reported correctly." 

It is easy to see what a power a faithful and 
strong teacher may wield by such an instrument- 
ality. But it is perhaps fair to say that self- 
reporting is a sharp two-edged sword which requires 
skillful handling. There seem to be two necessary 
conditions of success in the use of this measure. 
The first is a high moral sense in the teacher, and 
the second is a reasonably healthy moral tone in the 
school. If the first is wanting, results in character 
will be meager, whatever instrumentalities may be 
employed. If the second only is lacking, it be- 
hooves the teacher to bend every effort toward 
awakening a higher sense of honor among the 
pupils. 

Whatever policy may be deemed expedient 
or wise concerning general and formal self-re- 
porting in school, frank individual confession 
of faults ought to be encouraged and secured. 
And it is possible to secure the confidence and 
esteem of pupils to such an extent that it be- 
comes comparatively easy to get from them a 
direct and truthful account of many things con- 
cerning which they might otherwise be disposed 
to prevaricate or falsify. The confidence must be 
mutual. Confidence begets confidence. The boys 

187 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

at Rugby said, "It's a shame to tell Arnold a lie, 
he trusts a fellow so;" and Rugby boys were like 
other boys. The teacher who trusts his pupils, 
even at the risk of being sometimes imposed upon, 
will win their confidence and strengthen their moral 
nature. 

The principal of a large city school found it 
necessary to prohibit ball playing on the school 
grounds. He explained that, because of the large 
number of boys on the small play- ground, there 
were many complaints of inj ury to the smaller boys, 
and he expressly prohibited even the throwing of a 
ball on the grounds. Not many days after, at re- 
cess, he heard the rattling of broken glass, and on 
going into the basement he found a ball which had 
evidently just been thrown through a basement 
window. When his own school (the upper depart- 
ment, containing 150 pupils) assembled, the prin- 
cipal inquired, ' 'A light of glass broken at recess, 
was there not, boys ? " "Yes, sir," several voices 
responded. "Well," said the principal, "I do not 
wish to hear about it from anyone but the boy who 
did it. If the boy that threw the ball is in this 
room, he may raise his hand." There was a mo- 
ment of suspense, and a craning of necks all over 
the room to see whose hand, if any, would come up. 
Soon a hand was raised, and with it came a manly 
voice, "I did it, sir." "Thank you, Jesse," said 
the principal; "you may explain to me after the 
close of school. That is all now. ' ' After school 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

Jesse explained that he had the ball in his pocket 
and threw it at another boy without thinking of the 
order against ball-playing, and added, "I won't do 
it any more." The principal commended him for 
his frankness and reminded him of the rule requiring 
payment for damage to property. "Yes, sir," he 
said, "I'll bring it in the morning." 

The effect on a school of one incident like this 
is more valuable and more lasting than a score of 
moral lectures. Of course just such incidents as 
this are not of frequent occurrence without a healthy 
moral sentiment in the school and mutual confi- 
dence between teacher and pupils. What I wish to 
emphasize is that it is possible to secure such a state 
of sentiment in a school, such a sense of honor, that 
a large majority of the pupils will frankly and 
truthfully report their own misdemeanors. And 
how desirable such a condition is ! How it lightens 
the labor of government, and how much more 
agreeable and satisfactory the relations between 
teacher and pupils! It is the ideal toward which 
the noblest and best teachers have ever striven. It 
was Arnold's way of governing boys, and Garfield's, 
and Horace Mann's. It is worthy of note that two 
such men as Horace Mann and President Garfield 
have made strong appeals to teachers in favor 
of greater confidence and more cordial co-opera- 
tion between teacher and pupils. There ap- 
peared, some years ago, in the published proceed- 
ings of the Ohio Teachers' Association, a report 

189 



the; teacher and his work. 

submitted by Mr. Garfield, in which strong ground 
was taken in favor of self-reporting. Among the 
advantages of the plan were urged the following : 

i. "By manifesting confidence in students, it 
begets the same in return, and thus forms a basis 
on which a school can be more easily and pleasantly 
controlled. 

2. "It relieves the teacher in the main from that 
disagreeable system of espionage which is frequently 
unsuccessful, and by many is regarded dishonorable. 

3. "It is better in its personal effects upon the 
character of both pupils and teacher; by calling into 
exercise a nobler principle of human nature, and a 
more delicate sense of honor. ' ' 

About the same time, Horace Mann, by appoint- 
ment of the Ohio College Association, prepared an 
address to Ohio college faculties, in which were 
set forth in strong light the evils of distrust and 
antagonism between teachers and students, and the 
great value of mutual confidence, trust, and co- 
operation. The chief weight of his argument was 
directed against the false "code of honor," so gen- 
erally in force among students, which binds them 
to screen one another in wrong-doing. Now a mo- 
ment's reflectien is sufficient to satisfy anyone that 
this ' 'code' ' among pupils is to a large extent the 
result of their teachsrs' attitude and bearing toward 
them. When teachers are in full sympathy with 
their pupils, repose confidence in them, duly regard 
their rights and feelings, and treat them with 



190 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

openness and kindness, the "code" soon loses its 
hold, and confidence and co-operation take the 
place of suspicion and antagonism. 

This view does not imply any laxness of disci- 
pline or any yielding of the teacher's prerogative. 
It implies, rather, more ready obedience and better 
discipline, with less of friction and more of good 
feeling and good will. There must be obedience, 
and where it is not rendered voluntarily and cheer- 
fully, it must be secured by constraint. And the 
stronger the teacher to exact and enforce obedience, 
when necessary, the sooner will the need of con- 
straint cease. 

Nor does the reign of confidence and good will 
imply that the teacher is to be altogether blind to 
pupils' faults, or easily deceived or imposed upon; 
but rather the opposite. While sympathizing and 
kind, he should be a terror to evil doers. He should 
be sharper than the sharpest boy. He should be 
thoroughly familiar with boys' tricks. He should 
readily discriminate between well-meant playfulness 
or the bubbling over of animal life, and mean 
trickery. Skillful and thorough treatment of mean- 
ness or wrong- doing favors rather than hinders the 
growth of the right spirit in a school. 

The principal of the city school before mentioned 
had at another time a school in which the sense of 
honor was not very highly developed. One day at 
recess, as he was ringing a large hand-bell at the 
window to call in the pupils, the clapper of the bell 



191 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

fell out among the boys on the play ground. He 
looked out, but saw only a sea of upturned faces. 
When the boys came in and were seated, he in- 
quired, "Boys, did any of you see the bell-clapper?" 
There was no response; nobody knew an3^thing at 
all. And no device or power of persuasion could 
elicit any information. After the order was given 
to take books and proceed with study, the principal 
went into the lowest primary room, and, being on 
good terms with the little people, he asked, ' 'little 
boys, did any of you see the bell-clapper?" "Yes, 
sir; yes, sir;" shouted a chorus of voices. "EH 
Jennings, a big boy up in your room, picked it up 
and put it in his pocket. ' ' On returning to his own 
room, the principal took his watch in his hand and 
said with a good deal of emphasis, "The boy who 
has that bell-clapper will place it on my desk inside 
of two minutes, or there will be serious trouble for 
him." Eli, who sat in a front seat, grew very red 
and began to move nervously in his seat; but before 
the time had more than half expired, he rose in the 
presence of the whole school of a hundred pupils, 
stepped forward, and placed the clapper on the prin- 
cipal's desk. The effect upon the school, as well as 
upon Eli, was salutary. 

Having considered at some length the more im- 
portant moral instrumentalities of school govern- 
ment, I now propose to close this paper with some 
observations on what may be called the external or 
mechanical agencies. There is doubtless something 



192 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

of the moral element in every right means of gov- 
ernment; but in some more than others the external 
and mechanical seem to predominate. 

Government is more than persuasion, more than 
personal influence; it is at bottom coercion. Force 
sufficient to overcome resistance is the very essence 
of government. Authority and power must go 
together. A government not obeyed is no govern- 
ment. 

Some things already named as conditions favor- 
able to good government might be mentioned 
among the external agencies; as, 

i. Proper seating. When the teacher has 
placed each pupil in a comfortable seat and in best 
relations to his fellow-pupils and to all the sur- 
roundings, he has at least made a good start in the 
matter of control. 

2. Proper employment. Each pupil should have 
enough and not too much to do, and there should 
be a judicious alternation of study and recitation. 

3. Proper ventilation and heating. Fresh air 
and a suitable degree of temperature in a school 
room will sometimes drive out the demons of dis- 
order more effectually than birch branches or hazel 
sprouts. 

These and other similar agencies may be classed 
as preventives, and preventives which prevent are 
valuable; it has been said that an ounce of preven- 
tion is worth a pound of cure. But the whole store 
of preventives will not always suffice to obviate the 



193 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

necessity for curative or corrective agencies. The sick 
need a physician; and the remedies of best physicians 
are often disagreeable — even painful in the extreme. 

Punishment is a necessity of government in the 
family and in society, and in the school likewise. 
The right of the teacher of youth to administer 
punishment is universally recognized, though there 
is diversity of sentiment as to kind and degree, and 
it is one of the most important and difficult of the 
teacher's duties. One writer says: "The amount 
and kind of punishment administered at school 
is one of the best tests of a teacher's capacity 
and fitness for the station he occupies. No sub- 
ject connected with school management is more deli- 
cate, none more important, and none requires more 
judgment, discretion, or wisdom. As a general 
rule, the best teachers are those who punish least; 
and the wisest, those who make the best choice when 
punishment must be inflicted. Whatever savors 
of ill temper or brutality, whatever tends to the in- 
jury of the body, mind, or sensibilities of the child, 
is to be unsparingly condemned. ' ' 

Punishments in school as well as in the family 
and in society have in too great measure been ad- 
ministered without reason, in mere caprice or pas- 
sion, defeating the true ends of punishment. When 
to punish, what punishment to inflict in a given 
case, and how to punish, are questions of great im- 
portance, requiring mature judgment and good 
heart on the part of parents and teachers. 



194 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

The following principles laid down by Bentham 
have some value for general guidance: 

i. The punishment should exceed the apparent 
advantage derived from the commission of the 
offense. 

2. The greater the offense, the greater should 
be the pains taken to secure its punishment. 

3. Punishment should never be greater than is 
needed to prevent a repetition of the offense. 

4. Regard should be paid to the sensibility of 
the offender, as dependent on age, sex, health, 
social position, etc. 

5. Punishments should be increased in magni- 
tude as the detection of the offense is uncertain or 
remote. 

6. When the offense is not an isolated act, but 
an act indicating the existence of a habit, the pun- 
ishment should outweigh the apparent advantages, 
not merely of the act, but of the habit. 

To these may be added — 

Due regard should always be had to the motive 
and spirit of the wrong-doer. The same outward 
act does not always require the same kind and de- 
gree of punishment. Teachers should discriminate 
sharply between wilful disobedience and mere child- 
ish thoughtlessness. 

Not every wrong act requires punishment. 
Sometimes instruction, encouragement, and sympa- 
thy are more effective antidotes to misconduct than 
punishment. 



195 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

The chief ends of school punishment are — 
i. Reformation. In the state, punishments are 
retributive. In the family and the school they are 
mainly corrective. Children are punished for their 
faults. The good of the wrong-doer is the para- 
mount consideration. Hence school and family 
punishments should contain no element of vindic- 
tiveness. 

2. Warning. The knowledge that punishment 
is likely to follow wrong-doing has a restraining in- 
fluence. In this way punishment is preventive as 
well as corrective. The wise and efficient ruler is a 
terror to evil-doers as well as a praise to them that 
do well. 

3. Condemnation of wrong - doing . The right 
must be approved, the seal of condemnation placed 
on wrong. Virtue must be exalted, vice condemned 
and made odious. 

Some characteristics of judicious punishment 
may be mentioned. 

1. Punishment should be administered with de- 
liberatio?i. Anything like haste or passion is out of 
place and is liable to defeat the end in view. 
Teacher and pupil should both have time for reflec- 
tion. The pupil may come to a better mind and the 
punishment may be averted, or at any rate less 
severity may be necessary. School punishment of 
any kind imposed with calmness and deliberation is 
always more efficacious and less likely to embitter 
the pupil. 

196 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

The necessity may occasionally arise for deal- 
ing swiftly and summarily with the offender, but 
the rule is the other way. 

2. Punishment should be certain, or at least not 
capricious. The certainty of even light punishment 
is a more effective preventive of offenses than capri- 
cious severity. It does not follow that there is no 
place in school administration for mercy and for- 
giveness; but that with an even hand and a steady 
rein every case is to be dealt with on its merit and 
not according to the mood or caprice of the teacher. 

3. Punishment should be adapted in kind and de- 
gree to the conditions and circumstances of the case. It 
should be consequential as far as may be. The 
discipline of consequences is best where it is practic- 
able. It is this that Rousseau and Herbert Spencer 
dwell upon with so much emphasis. And concern- 
ing the same, Mr. Fitch, an experienced English 
school inspector, points out that when a child sees 
that his punishment is the direct consequence of his 
fault, he cannot rebel as he might otherwise. '.'You 
eliminate altogether the feeling of personal resent- 
ment and the sense of injustice if you make the 
punishment thus, whenever possible, obviously ap- 
propriate to the fault and logically its sequel. The 
principle once seen, covers a good many school 
offenses. The obvious punishment for late coming 
is late going; for doing an exercise ill is to do it 
again well; for injury to the property of others, 
restitution at one's own cost," etc. But Fitch and 



197 



the; teacher and his work. 

Compayre both point out very clearly the imprac- 
ticability of depending solely on natural conse- 
quences for the correction of the faults of children. 
Fitch says: "Experience proves to us that it is 
wholly inadequate as a theory of moral government, 
either for a school or a state. ' ' And Compayre : 
"There is nothing more brutal, more inhuman, than 
the system which, suppressing all human interven- 
tion of the teacher in the correction of the child, 
leaves to nature alone the task of chastising him. 
. . . The system of natural consequences sup- 
presses moral ideas — the idea of moral obligation 
and duty." 

It is pre-eminently the duty of parents and 
teachers to interpose, in behalf of childhood, such 
milder though more arbitrary punishments as tend 
to avert the cruel and relentless penalties which 
nature provides for wrong-doing. To this they are 
called, and when they withhold needed chastise- 
ment and indulge the evil-doer, their guilt is great. 

He is the true teacher who by every suitable 
means corrects his pupils' faults and saves them 
from wrong-doing and its inevitable consequences, 
and often the best he can do is to substitute arbi- 
trarily his own lighter penalties for the far more 
painful natural results of imprudent conduct. 

Of the modes of punishment I shall speak but 
briefly. Reproof, privation, seclusion, demerits, 
withdrawal of all signs of esteem and confidence, 
and temporary suspension, kindly and firmly ad- 

198 



SCHOOX, GOVERNMENT. 

ministered, will usually fulfill the more important 
conditions of effective punishment. 

Expulsion and the rod are for flagrant offenses 
and obstinate cases. The former is in the power of 
the board of education only. 

Concerning the use of the rod in schools, much 
has been said on both sides. Arguments against its 
use have been, for the most part, founded upon its 
abuse rather than its legitimate and judicious use. 
It is certainly better a school should be controlled 
by the use of the rod than that it should go un- 
controlled. "The rod and reproof give wisdom," 
says Solomon. There seems to be designedly a 
close connection between the corporeal sensibilities 
and those that are mental and moral. ' 'The intel- 
lect, the sensibility, and the will are all more or less 
affected by any suffering that may be inflicted upon 
the nervous sensibility, and if, when inflicted, there 
is a clear apprehension on the part of the sufferer as 
to its intent, and if it be administered in proper 
spirit and in proper quantity, it follows that, unless 
the subject of such punishment is beyond the reach 
of reformation, this means may and will reclaim 
him." 

Nevertheless, it is to be borne in mind that the 
best teachers rarely resort to the use of the rod, — 
some of them never. The right attitude of the 
teacher is to maintain the right to use the rod, but 
avoid the use. Mr. Fitch tells of one of the best 
day schools he ever examined, in which the disci - 



199 



THR TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

pline was singularly high-toned, manly, and cheer- 
ful, without one case of corporal punishment in its 
whole history. Yet the master begged the inspec- 
tor to make no mention of the fact in reporting on 
the school. "I do not mean to use it," the master 
said, "but I do not want it to be in the power of 
the public or the parents to say I am precluded 
from using it. Every boy here knows that it is 
within my discretion, and that if a very grave or 
exceptional fault occurred I might use that discre- 
tion." 

Good Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, is quoted as saying: 
"The proud notion of independence and dignity 
which revolts at the idea of personal chastisement 
is not reasonable and is certainly not Christian. It is 
the sin that degrades and not the punishment of it. ' ' 

Horace Mann maintained that the rod could not 
be entirely banished from the school-room until a 
sufficient number of angels have been imported from 
heaven to supply all the schools with teachers; and 
he might have added — a sufficient number of little 
angels to supply all the schools with pupils. But 
Horace Mann is also quoted as saying: "Corporal 
punishment should never be inflicted but in cases of 
extremest necessity. ' ' 

Well would it be if all teachers who find occa- 
sion to use the rod at all would use it so discreetly 
that legislatures and school boards would find no 
occasion to limit their prerogative or narrow their 
discretion in the matter by any formal enactment. 



200 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

I find fitting close to this chapter in the words of 
Mr. Fitch: 

"The great triumph of school discipline is to do 
without punishments altogether. And to this end 
it is essential that we should watch those forms of 
offense which occur oftenest, and see if, by some 
better arrangements of our own, temptation to 
wrong may be diminished and offences prevented. 
If your government is felt to be based on high prin- 
ciples, to be vigilant and entirely just, to be strict 
without being severe, to have no element of caprice 
or fitfulness in it; if the public opinion of the school 
is so formed that a scholar is unpopular who does 
wrong, you will find not only that all the more de- 
grading forms of personal chastisement are unnec- 
essary, but that the need of punishment in any form 
will steadily disappear. ' ' 



201 



The Moral and Religious Element 
in Education. 



' ' One religion after another perishes, but the religious 
sense which creates them all never dies. ' ' 



VIII. 

The Moral and Religious Element 
in Education. 

IT has been sometimes asserted by men claiming to 
speak with authority in such matters that the 
chief end of education is to fit men for getting on in 
the world — to train men for their particular occupa- 
tions. It may be freely admitted that every man 
should be fitted for some honorable and useful oc- 
cupation and should pursue it persistently, but as a 
means rather than an end. A man's life is more 
than meat and drink. The necessity laid upon men 
to labor for food, clothing, and shelter, is itself a 
valuable part of their moral discipline; but there is 
a spirit in man whose cravings can never be satis- 
fied by the bread he earns. 

That training is best for a man which is best 
calculated to develop all his capabilities. The par- 
ticular sphere in life which anyone is to occupy can- 
not be determined beforehand, and it would seem 
very unwise to spend years in shaping and fitting a 
human soul for a niche it may never occupy. Far 
better would it seem to seek the perfection of our 
human nature in every direction and in all its capa- 
bilities. If to the highest physical development and 
the best scientific, literary, and aesthetic culture we 



205 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

add supreme regard for God — an acknowledgment 
of His sovereignty and a practical recognition of our 
relations to Him as His children, we probably have 
the highest human conception of the perfection of 
our nature. Human perfection is not a fixed 
quantity, but rather an infinite progression. It con- 
sists in forever growing. 

But in the light of such an ideal, how very in- 
adequate is our school education. It is partial, 
one-sided, incomplete. It cultivates the lower fac- 
ulties, leaving the higher and nobler powers to the 
blight and decay of inactivity, or to such chance 
development as other and less systematic agencies 
may afford. The schools do much in the way of 
intellectual development, and the results attained in 
this direction are not to be disparaged; but they 
fail in great measure to recognize the fact that the 
human soul is endowed with other and higher facul- 
ties equally susceptible of cultivation and growth. 
The schools do much for the head, but far too little 
for the heart. 

The great educational want of our day is heart 
culture, and the great desideratum in the teachers 
who are to bless coming generations is heart power. 
Momentous changes are taking place in the world. 
The human family seems to be in a transition state. 
The old foundations are breaking up; the old land- 
marks are being removed. Men are no longer con- 
tent with the creeds and dogmas to which they have 
been wont to trust. It is a time which tries men. 



206 



THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 

It is a time when they feel the need of something 
better than creed and ritual. Men realize more and 
more the need of a power of vision which will en- 
able them to see other than material things, an un- 
derstanding which will enable them to apprehend 
higher thoughts than the subtleties of human 
philosophy. There is higher knowledge than sense- 
knowledge. There are truths which deeply con- 
cern us which never can be reached by scientific 
method. The highest development of mere intel- 
lect can never attain to a knowledge of the highest 
truths. "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for 
God is love. ' ' The power to apprehend spiritual 
truth proceeds from the heart. "With the heart 
man believeth unto righteousness." The divine 
educator of our race begins and ends with the heart 
as that which determines the character. A man is 
what his heart is. The heart gives tone and temper 
to the whole being. It is the fountain whence the 
streams of life issue; and the stream cannot be 
good unless the fountain be pure. Any system of 
education which neglects the cultivation of the 
heart seeks to purify the stream without any regard 
to the fountain. 

There is in every man a native power of spiritual 
apprehension which is subject to the general law of 
human development. It may, by proper stimula- 
tion and exercise, be made to live and grow strong; 
or it may be dwarfed and enfeebled by neglect and 
disuse, until there is no consciousness of the posses- 



207 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

sion of any such power. And furthermore, all our 
faculties are so closely related that all suffer from 
the neglect of any. The highest intellectual culture 
is never reached where the cultivation of the heart 
is wholly neglected. A French writer has said that 
the continual operation of the intellect without the 
presence of God dries up and exhausts the soul. 

Moral and intellectual development should be 
carried on simultaneously. Bach is the complement 
of the other. To separate them is to defeat the 
object of both. But were it possible to separate 
them, and to give precedence to either, moral cul- 
ture has the first claim. ' 'The moral and religious 
part of man's nature is the highest part. Of right 
it has sovereignty and dominion over all the rest. 
The whole scheme of creation, at least so far as it 
relates to man, was based on the supremacy of the 
moral faculties. ' ' Civilization is but the ascendency 
of the moral and religious element of human nature 
in the aggregate. 

It is hard to account for the aversion of men to 
the cultivation of their higher faculties. Vast multi- 
tudes seem to live only in their lower nature. Bun- 
yan's man with the muck-rake aptly illustrates the 
tendency of men to follow their lower animal in- 
stincts rather than their higher spiritual intuitions. 
This man is represented as shut up in a dingy room 
with a muck-rake in his hand. He looked no way 
but downward, while a shining one was above him 
with a beautiful crown of gold in his hand, which 

208 



THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 

he offered him in exchange for his muck-rake. But 
the man refused to look up and continued raking to 
himself the straws, little sticks, and dust which lay- 
on the floor of his room. 

The higher and better the culture proposed, the 
more determined and violent the opposition of men 
who live only in their lower nature. The man who 
said, "Makin' them thar picters don't do my boy 
no good," doubtless believed he had settled at a 
stroke and forever the whole question of drawing 
as a branch of education. He is but a type of a 
very large class, for whom aesthetic culture has no 
attraction, and to whom moral and religious instruc- 
tion is absolutely repugnant. For want of early culti- 
vation, their higher faculties lie dormant. They 
are no more capable of apprehending the things of 
the spirit than the deaf man of recognizing sound, 
or the blind man of distinguishing color. 

An unwarranted distinction is sometimes made 
between morality and religion. Morality is religion 
in practice. Morality without religion is a form 
without the substance. Any system of education 
which ignores all moral training would scarcely 
find an advocate in this or any other enlightened 
land. All are agreed that the instruction in the 
schools should tend to the formation of upright 
character in the pupils; but at the mention of re- 
ligion, which is the only foundation of all good 
morals, opposition is at once aroused. There must 
be no religious instruction in schools supported by 



209 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

the state. This false sentiment has, doubtless, 
in great measure, grown out of the practice of con- 
founding religion with sect, and dogma, and theo- 
logical systems. It should be borne in mind that 
the dissensions, intolerance, and bitterness, which 
have in the past attended theological disputation, 
are not chargeable to religion, but to the want of it. 
Much of the opposition to moral and religious in- 
struction in schools which now exists is directly 
chargeable to the churchmen. When they lay 
down their weapons of warfare, and when earnest 
effort to lead men in the way of pure and noble liv- 
ing takes the place of theological disputation, we 
may expect much of this opposition to disappear. 
The great progress made in this direction in recent 
years gives hope for the future. 

Religion is defined by Dr. Watts as "duty to 
God and our neighbor," and by Worcester as "an 
acknowledgment of God as our Creator, with a feel- 
ing of reverence and love, and consequent duty and 
obedience to Him; duty to God and His creatures." 
And this is the sum of all morality. There is not a 
moral maxim nor an ethical principle deemed valu- 
able by civilized and enlightened men which is not 
included in the Christian religion. The great cen- 
tral fact of Christianity is Christ giving Himself to 
help men into the way of right living. True re- 
ligion is the voice of God speaking to the hearts of 
men, calling them to Himself, that they may be 
like Him. And may not the youth in our schools 



210 



the; morai, and religious element. 

be taught to recognize that voice and heed its warn- 
ings and invitations ? Horace Mann has, well said : 

"The domain of education extends over the 
three-fold nature of man; over his body, training it 
by the systematic and intelligent observance of 
those benign laws which secure health, impart 
strength, and prolong life; over his intellect, invig- 
orating the mind, replenishing it with knowledge, 
and cultivating all those tastes which are allied to 
virtue; and over his moral and religious suscepti- 
bilities also, dethroning selfishness, enthroning con- 
science, leading the affections outward in good will 
toward men, and upward in gratitude and reverence 
to God." 

The happiness of individuals, and the purity, 
prosperity, and permanence of society, imperatively 
demand the cultivation of all those susceptibilities 
of our nature whose proper development tends to 
range the will on the side of God and right. There 
is no safety, either to the individual or to society, 
in any other course. Are we not already reaping 
the fruit of our false views and neglect in this mat- 
ter, in the low state of public morals, the corruption 
of the public conscience, the betrayal of public trust, 
and the general disregard of moral obligation, which 
seem at times to threaten the very foundations of 
society? The Prussian maxim, "What you would 
have appear in the life of the nation, you must put- 
into its schools," is sound and wise. If we are to 
enjoy the blessedness of the "nation whose God 



211 



THK TKACH^R AND HIS WORK. 

is the Iyord," we must teach the fear of God in our 
schools. 

It has been urged that there is diversity of 
opinion among men in matters of religion, and that 
on this account religious instruction should have no 
place in public schools. There are wide differences 
of opinion among men on scientific subjects. Shall 
science on that account be excluded from the 
schools ? There are also differences of opinion in 
regard to the administration of government — even 
in regard to the principles on which govern- 
ment is founded. Shall we, on that account, for- 
bear to administer government ? Because a teacher 
belongs to one political party or another, must he 
be restrained from instructing his pupils in the prin- 
ciples of good government ? A sense of propriety 
should restrain teachers from all partisan and sec- 
tarian instruction and influence; but the principles 
and practice of pure religion and good citizenship 
should be emphasized and enforced. The young 
people should be taught and required to render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
the things that are God's. A Chicago school report 
contains this sound and wise sentiment : "Secta- 
rianism and partisanship have no place appropriate 
for them in any institution under government sup- 
port or control; but for patriotism and pure 1'eligion 
an appropriate place is found in every institution 
controlled and supported by government." 

But it is maintained that religious instruction 



212 



THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 

cannot be given in public schools without interfering 
with the rights of private conscience. The very 
first right of conscience, and that upon which lib- 
erty of conscience depends, is the right to be en- 
lightened. It is strange, indeed, that to instruct 
and enlighten the conscience, and teach men to 
obey its dictates, should be deemed a violation of 
the rights of conscience. But admitting that there 
may be involved some things contrary to the blunted 
conscience of some individuals, does that settle the 
question ? Would not the exclusion of all religious 
instruction and training from the school be a far 
greater violation of the rights of conscience ? I,et 
us look at the bearing of this question in some other 
directions. Do we, as a rule, permit private con- 
science to interfere with public good ? For exam- 
ple, do we feel bound to respect the Mormon con- 
science? Did we respect the slaveholder's con- 
science in 1 86 1 ? Must we deny to the government 
the right of self-preservation because some of its 
citizens are conscientiously opposed to bearing arms 
in its defense ? Much less should we deny the State 
the right of self-preservation by securing the integ- 
rity as well as the intelligence of her citizens. 

It is also maintained that religious instruction 
belongs to the family and the church, and not to 
the school. To this it is a sufficient answer, that a 
large number of youth would be left without any 
moral or religious training; and if it is incumbent 
on the State to undertake any part of the work of 



213 



THE} TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

instruction, there is none so essential to her welfare 
as that which secures uprightness and purity in the 
lives of her citizens. Vast multitudes of children 
are reared in godless homes, scarcely a tithe of 
whom ever come under the influence of church or 
Sunday school; and of those who do attend Sunday 
school with more or less regularity, not all, by any 
means, can be said to receive effective moral and 
religious training. I am constrained to say that 
the influence of many Sunday schools, on account 
of their low standard of discipline, and the low 
order of teaching talent employed, are far less effi- 
cient in producing good moral character than 
the thorough discipline and instruction, of the 
public school, even where no direct moral in- 
struction is given. I believe the tendency in 
many Sunday schools is to both moral and intel- 
lectual dissipation. Not all Sunday schools deserve 
this censure; but in a majority of them there is need 
of a much higher standard of instruction and disci- 
pline. The Sunday school ought to have a higher 
mission than the entertainment or amusement of 
the children. 

The public school is the only place where moral 
and religious training and influence can be brought 
to bear on a majority of those whose homes are de- 
void of them; and no other agency is capable of 
producing such definite results in this direction. 
Not even the Christian ministry is above the teach- 
ing profession in the variety, adaptation, and power 



214 



TH£ MORAL AND RKIylGIOUS EXKM^NT. 

of its appliances, and in the immediateness and pro- 
ductiveness of the results which may be gained by 
their use. The minister teaches at intervals, while 
the teacher's work goes on from day to day. The 
preacher can point to the right path, but he cannot 
make his hearers walk in it. He cannot constrain 
the will, and bind it firmly to duty; nor can he ex- 
ercise the power of personal authority and discipline, 
or stamp his own entire individuality, with all the 
weight of his varied knowledge and force of char- 
acter, upon his people, as can the true teacher upon 
his pupils. He labors to impress those whose habits 
are fixed, and whose sensibilities are blunted. The 
teacher operates upon the impressible minds and 
hearts of youth, whose souls are all aglow, and 
whose hearts are plastic under the gentlest touches 
of his hand, and tenderly responsive to all his 
thoughts and feelings. Oh that the teachers 
of our land felt the weight of responsibility 
which rests upon them ! What trusts are com- 
mitted to them ! and what opportunities they have 
for good ! 

I am not unaware that there are difficulties 
in the way. I admit the seeming force of some of 
the objections urged against religious instruction in 
schools supported and controlled by the state; and 
I freely confess my inability to comprehend, in all 
their bearings, the complicated social and political 
problems which the question involves, yet it seems 
to me that the obligation is laid upon us, and we 



215 



THE TEACHER AMD HIS WORK. 

dare not shrink from the duty because of the diffi- 
culties. The true solution of the problem can be 
found only by going forward in the accomplishment 
of the work. One consideration of great weight in 
my mind is the fact that all the difficulties attending 
the question have their origin in human imper- 
fection, or, to use a stronger term, in human per- 
verseness. It is not to be supposed that if the 
human family were in its normal condition there 
would be doubt in the minds of any about the pro- 
priety of teaching all the children in the schools to 
fear God and keep His commandments. The true 
course for teachers to pursue is to press forward 
steadily and carefully, gaining wisdom and skill by 
experience, and trusting to the Great Teacher of 
mankind to direct the issue. There is much need 
for the exercise of prudence. "The servant of the 
I^ord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, 
apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing them 
that oppose themselves." 

We must of necessity recognize the direct agency 
of an unseen but efficient power, coming to us from 
above, to work in and renew the forces of our 
humanity. But this does not diminish aught of 
human responsibility. The cultivator of the soil 
recognizes the fact that sunshine and rain are es- 
sential to vegetable growth, but he is, on that ac- 
count, no less assiduous in his efforts so to prepare 
the soil that the sun and rain may operate under the 
most favorable conditions; nor is he any the less 



216 



the; moral, and religious element. 

vigilant in preventing the growth of noxious weeds 
which hinder the growth he seeks to foster. 

There is a prevalent impression that the best 
moral instruction is that which is least formal, that 
which may be imparted in connection with other 
subjects of instruction, or which may be given inci- 
dentally, without the setting apart of time for the 
purpose. It is doubtless true that much valuable 
instruction may be imparted in this way. The 
teacher who is filled with an ardent desire to do his 
whole duty in this matter can find many occasions 
for impressing the minds of his pupils with valuable 
moral lessons. But experience shows that, amid 
the multiplicity of subjects requiring the teacher's 
time and attention, no fitting place is likely to be 
found for a subject to which no definite place is as- 
signed. This is doubtless one of the reasons for 
the neglect of moral and religious instruction in 
most schools. No one would expect the success of 
an attempt to teach grammar or arithmetic in this 
casual or incidental way. Not only should this 
work have its own appropriate time, but it should 
be carried on after a carefully devised plan. 

First in order and importance among the things 
to be taught, and requiring constant inculcation, is 
the fear of God. ' 'The fear of the I,ord is the be- 
ginning of wisdom." Jacob's favorite son, one of 
the purest and strongest characters in history, gave 
the key to his life when he said, "I fear God." 
The fear of God includes in it reverence and love 



217 



THE) TIOACHBR AND HIS WORK. 

for God as our father, a recognition of His authority 
over us, and the obligation resting upon us of obedi- 
ence and submission to Him. No other power is 
so efficient in the right development of moral char- 
acter as a vivid conception of God's active presence, 
and conscious intelligent interest in human affairs. 
The thought of God's personal presence and our ac- 
countability to Him should be kept constantly be- 
fore the minds of the young. "Thou God seest 
me," and "Every one of us shall give account of 
himself to God, ' ' are appropriate mottoes for every 
school room. 

Horace Greeley never uttered profounder truth 
than when he said in an educational address, ' 'The 
true idea of God clearfy unfolded within us, moving 
us to adore and obey Him, and to aspire after like- 
ness to Him, produces the highest and best growth 
of our nature. Nothing else so thoroughly awakens 
the moral sense within us, and leads to the corn- 
complete enthronement of conscience over the 
lower desires, appetites and passions. ' ' 

The moral sense may be awakened very early. 
The chief danger arises from its neglect until selfish 
desires and base passions have grown strong. If 
from childhood men were taught to follow the first 
intimations of conscience, and honestly to obey 
them and carry them out in action, the power of 
conscience would grow so strong as to become the 
controlling principle of the life. 

But if conscience is to be enthroned it must be 



218 



TH£ morai, and religious elkmknt. 

enlightened. An unenlightened conscience is a 
blind guide. All our youth should be instructed in 
the principles of Christian ethics. They should be 
taught to know the right and inclined and con- 
strained to do it. For purposes of instruction there 
is no other instrumentality which can compare with 
the teachings of the Bible. It is the best text-book 
of morals. It has been provided by an authority 
higher and wiser than boards of education or state 
legislatures. Man's creator is its author. He knew 
the tendencies and capabilities of human powers as 
no man can know them, and He has given in this 
book the instruction best adapted to produce the 
purest and strongest character. 

"How pure, how perfect are Jehovah's laws, 
From them the soul its best instruction draws; 
Truth, virtue, love, and wisdom they impart, 
Light to the eyes and rapture to the heart. 
Bright is the gloomy cavern's jeweled oar, 
Sweet is the roving bee's collected store; 
But what can nature, what can art bestow, 
Ivike the pure words that from Jehovah flow ? ' ' 

There should be no enforced use of the Bible in 
schools, under present conditions, nor should its use 
be prohibited by either state or local enactment. It 
should be left, as its author has left it, entirely free. 
The perfunctory reading of the Bible in school, by 
a teacher who does not acknowledge its authority 
and love its precepts, will have little influence for 
good, if its effect be not positively pernicious. 
More important than the Bible in school, is its 



219 



THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 

spirit in the heart of the teacher. He may impress, 
directly and indirectly, the thought of the being and 
love of God, and the knowledge of the obligations 
arising from our relations to Him and to each other; 
and the pupils may receive, as an emanation from 
the teacher's inner life and character, an elevated 
religious spirit. Yet, in communities where no se- 
rious opposition exists, the daily use of the Bible is 
desirable; and my experience and observation lead 
me to conclude that the earnest and judicious 
teacher will rarely meet with any interference. 

The general atmosphere of the school and the 
personal influence of the teacher may be powerful 
instruments of moral culture. The degree of faith- 
fulness and efficiency with which school duties are 
performed, determines in a great measure the 
moral tone of the school. The standard which the 
teacher fixes for himself; and the standard he re- 
quires of his pupils in the accomplishment of the 
work of the school, go very far toward fixing the 
pupil's moral standard for life. The pupil who has 
been punctual and regular in his attendance at 
school, and prompt and thorough in the prepara- 
tion and recitation of all his lessons for the ten or 
twelve years of his school life, will rarely fail to be- 
come an efficient and reliable man or woman. 

The discipline of the school may be so exercised 
as to beget in the pupils the power of self-control, 
regard for the rights and feelings of others, and 
hatred of deception and every form of wrong. In 



220 



THK MORAL AND RELIGIOUS Kl^MENT. 

the exercise of discipline, the teacher should keep 
constantly before his mind the highest good of his 
pupils. With teachers of weak moral character, the 
first question generally is, How will this or that 
measure affect myself? What will people think? 
or how will it affect my reputation ? But with the 
true teacher, the great question is, How will it 
affect the character and life of my pupils ? 

The motives to which the teacher is accustomed 
to appeal will have great influence on the character 
of his pupils. If the motives are low and selfish, 
the moral nature will be debased. The incentives 
set before the young should be such as tend to 
quicken the conscience and to develop and strengthen 
the moral nature. There is probably no other topic 
more fundamental and vital in education than this. 
It demands the most thoughtful consideration of 
parents as well as teachers. And in connection 
with this the inner life and character of the teacher 
is of supreme importance. It has been said in re- 
gard to painting that "the characteristic traits of 
the artist, despite his efforts to the contrary, find 
their expression on the canvas. ' ' The masterpieces 
of Rembrandt have been pronounced coarse and 
gross, while those of his contemporary, Vandyke, 
are invariably spoken of as the embodiment of 
purity and refinement. These individualities are 
noticeable in their portraits of the same persons. 
The teacher is an artist, who, all unconsciously, it 
may be, is constantly transferring to his pupils the 



221 



ths teacher and his work. 

lineaments of his own soul. Every teacher exerts 
on the moral nature of his pupils an influence either 
good or bad. A silent, unconscious influence goes 
out from his inner life and character, which cannot 
be measured. Some people have been so deeply 
impressed with the thought of the great power of 
the teacher's influence, as to conclude that all the 
moral and religious influence of the school which is 
of any worth, must come from the teacher's char- 
acter and life; and that there is no need of direct 
and formal instruction. The fact must not be over- 
looked that the inculcation of right moral principles 
vitalizes and increases the teacher's moral influence. 
Precept and example are the complement of each 
other. The Great Teacher exerted a power of per- 
sonal influence unequaled by any other teacher of 
our race. Yet He taught, from day to day and 
from house to house, the principles of pure morality 
and religion, as well as the practical duties of every- 
day life. 

The subject is one of transcendent interest and 
importance. The gravest responsibility that now 
rests upon the teachers of this country is the right 
moral training of the youth of the land. Upon this 
depends the prosperity and permanence of our free 
institutions. 



222 



Home and School. 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
devoted to education in schools 
of every grade and in the home. 



Sj2 



"Home and School costs only one dollar a year, 
but it will do any teacher more than a hundred dol- 
lar's worth of good in that time. " — Ironton Register. 






"One of the best papers, both for parent 

and teacher, of which 1 have any knowledge." 

— Indiana Superintendent. 

ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 

Edited and published by 

SAMUEL FINDLEY, 

AKRON, OHIO. 



JUN ' 1899 



